The dance world celebrates Will Tuckett for his choreography, as well as career defining roles such as Widow Simone in Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée with The Royal Ballet. But he has an equally impressive record as an award-winning director of operas, theatre, television and films. Yet in spite of it all, Tuckett comes across as a softly spoken, cautious, ‘keeping my fingers crossed’ kind of guy. His new production of The Snowman, based on Raymond Briggs’ book, is about to open at the Birmingham Rep, followed by a long stint at London’s Peacock Theatre.
When we speak early on a Monday morning, Tuckett is excited. “My production manager just sent me a picture of the fit up which they’ve started today,” he says. “I know it’s quite early in the season, but they’re getting everything in. We’ve got our first flying rehearsals on Wednesday, and then we start tech proper.” There will be many previews before the official opening, but, Tuckett says, “I’ve got four Boys going into it. Every time you have a dress rehearsal, you have to have it four times over because they all have to be ‘teched in’ properly. But they’re lovely. We just have to make them all safe.”
With a simple story and two central characters, the Boy and the Snowman, the previous production by Robert North ran for 32 years. I wondered if it was a case of giving it a revamp, a paint job? “Definitely not just a paint job,” Tuckett explains. “It would have been a real disservice to that original team to just patch it up. Theatre has changed so much in 30 years... the sort of things we’re able to do now. We’ve got a lot of video in the show, and projection 32 years ago was just not something you could do. Back then, the show had absolutely everybody working at the top of their game. It’s just the game is a different one now.”
Updating a show that had such staying power comes with a certain amount of pressure, he says. “But it’s also rather wonderful that it’s something that people have loved so much over so many years. They’re very big shoes to fill, I won’t lie!”
Tuckett is keen to emphasise that he has returned to Briggs’ original 1978 book, rather than follow the film, which came later. “Random House have been incredibly generous,” he tells me. “They’ve let us into all the different departments to see the original drawings and artwork. They’ve got a facsimile of Briggs’ original thoughts about layout and how it should work. They’re very moving pictures – it’s really emotional looking at them.”
In the 1982 film, the Boy and the Snowman fly to a land where there are many snowmen, something which doesn’t happen in the book. Instead, they fly down to Brighton Pier and then when the sun comes up, they go home. “What’s interesting to me is that Briggs, to a degree, pulled away from the film, perhaps thinking ‘it’s not my thing’,” Tuckett says.
“The first Christmas with The Snowman on TV was the first year we had Channel Four. It was Christmas Day and we were at my grandfather’s. It was a really big event. Running through the film to us now is Howard Blake’s music. Walking in the Air is in all of our DNA. We can never be rid of it. The music makes you think about the sort of ideal Christmas that possibly none of us has ever had.”
“Briggs did that brilliant thing,” Tuckett adds, “to create something that appeals to adults as well as to children. Because we’ve been talking about remaking it for a long time now, I’ve been to see the show quite a few times over the last few years. I’ve been conscious that it had become a show mostly aimed at small children. Actually, it would be really wonderful if, as an adult, there were things in there for us as well!”
Tuckett mentions that his show based on the BBC’s In The Night Garden has been running now for nearly 19 years. He is a keen observer of audience demographics. “It is undeniably a show for very small children, from zero to about three. Watching particularly the dads, they can really switch off.” Yet the relationship between The Snowman’s two central characters is a particularly moving reflection of relationships between fathers and sons.
“There’s a gorgeous moment in the book that isn’t in the film, where the Boy and the Snowman go into the garage and sit in the car and just turn the lights on and off. It’s so innocent and beautiful.”
Tuckett has been keen to keep enough in for the adults in attendance. “I don’t know whether I’ve achieved it or not, but that’s what I’m hoping for – to make something that has that innocence and naivety, but also has some nods and winks to the parents and grandparents as well.”
I wonder about how the technology has developed in the intervening years – surely all aspects of the production are more sophisticated? “There’s a lot more flying than was in the old show,” Tuckett says. “It used to be a single line of flying, but now they’re on double points, which means you can lie down and you can go up, fly past each other – and all of it’s programmed and automated. It’s good fun!”
The production has also managed to avoid the previous show’s many blackouts, which it had through necessity. Howard Blake had written some beautiful passages of music just for the blackouts, which Tuckett has now incorporated into the choreography. So just how much ballet is there? “Quite a lot, actually,” he smiles.
“Our Father Christmas is quite dancey. He’s not small and round, he’s a bit more a ‘hot’ Santa, because of Teague Applegate – he’s an American ballet dancer and he’s beautiful! I think I’m always very aware that with children, you’ve only got a short amount of time that you can dance for the sake of dancing. They are like, we’re out of here! They switch off. So you’ve got about two minutes and then you need something else in the story to kick in.”
And then there is the puppetry! Tuckett looks visibly excited when I ask about his work with Tahra Zafar, who was responsible for recreating Paddington Bear for the West End. He’s been working with her for about 20 years. “She’s brilliant in lots of ways,” he says. “She has an incredible ability to take something that might be 2D and turn that into a three dimensional kind of living costume.
“She treats everything with huge care and she’s really aware of the responsibility of taking something that’s very beloved and how to make it an engaging and gorgeous thing. There are a lot of puppets which hopefully feels magical.”
Tuckett says it used to have a very upbeat ending, but that Briggs was adamant that it wasn’t really a Christmas story. Rather, it’s a story about loss and loneliness. He continues, “The idea that a friend who wasn’t there, will take you off on a journey and that you can go flying together is so magical. The very end picture of The Snowman is absolutely devastating. The Boy has run downstairs, past his parents and out, and there’s just this sort of melted pile. I really wanted to let that land properly. My entire stage management team were in tears. Hopefully if you’re small, you don’t see it in that way.
“It is as true now as it was then, that we get lonely, that we want a friend and that fear of losing the friend is absolutely there. I think that’s at the heart of the story – but it will have a very jolly curtain call!”
Will Tuckett’s The Snowman runs from 20th October to 1st November at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and 21st November to 3rd January at the Peacock Theatre in London.
