Do you know anyone in the whole world who wouldn't steal a few chickens to stop his children from starving to death?
Fantastic Mr Fox appeals to the children in the audience at the grand marquee in Farnham library gardens, and they have no doubt at all, the family comes first.
This is the first of several plays to be presented by the New Farnham Repertory Theatre Company in the gardens.
In Director Ian Mullins' adaption of the Roald Dahl story, the chicken-eating farmers are the villains. The chicken-eating foxes are the heroes.
The farmers are a revolting lot and the most foul, Farmer Bean, dines happily on the contents of his ears and nose rather than on conventional food.
Smell you later, say his friends Boggis (David Gooderson) and Bunce (Andrew McCrae).
These three are the comic villains of the piece, so stupid that one wonders how on earth they became such apparently successful farmers, and totally unable to shoot the fox even when he stares them in the face.
The remarkable fox, however, even replaces the floorboards of the chicken houses after his regular raids.
The young audience, gladly supported the wily fox, played with gentlemanly panache by Nicholas Collett, who has the enviable ability to reach his young (and older) audience withing the first five minutes of this lively production.
His long-suffering wife, starving and thirsty after the siege laid by the angry farmers, was given a warm and gentle interpretation by Denise Hoey. Their children were played with cheerful confidence by pupils from Waverley Abbey School.
A splendidly alcoholic rat makes his appearance under the base of Farmer Bean's cider store; the rat and smelly Bean both indelicately played by Paul Hampton.
A couple of songs relative to the story were sung enthusiastically by the audience and cast, and a young blackbird joined in from its royal box position on the lighting rail.
The wild enthusiasm of the children for the signatures of the cast after the performance gave this exciting Mr Fox a clear thumbs up of approval.
Ros Austen