Two Caravans review, King's Head Theatre

On a cold, rainswept, summer afternoon in 2012, at a book festival in a London park, I spent a warming hour talking to Marina Lewycka about the immigrant experience. Her light touch stories about the Ukrainian diaspora are full of universal insights into the exile's - and the domicile's - condition. Immigrants often fall into one or other camp: they're either desperate to escape another life, or hungry to build a new life. The two can, but don't necessarily, go together.

Caravan of Love

The challenge for Guy Harries and Ace McCarron on reading Lewycka's 2007 novel, Two Caravans, was how to turn a story about Ukranian strawberry pickers on the run with a stolen caravan, into an opera with all  the peaks and troughs the medium demands. Somehow, with a set of steps, a strip of stage, a table and chairs and a cast of five, they've pulled it off. As the East Europeans hit the road with Malawian Christian, Emmanuel, searching for his emigree sister after losing both parents to HIV, we are laughing and sighing.

Opera is not a subtle medium and you don't have to like opera to enjoy Two Caravans. Just hearing good singing in a tiny space is a luxury. The darker subtext blurs and events during the pickers' journey from Kent to Sheffield can be confusing, but Vincent Van Den Elshout's direction is fast, witty and sexy. There's a lot of strawberry action, and the whole piece is playful. Rosie Middleton and Peter Braithwaite are particularly brilliant at doubling up on roles, and it's very funny that a lot of the women's songs are written for a sleek baritone in wigs and red heels.

In conclusion: A sporting cast - the others are Sylvie Gallant, Adam Torrance and Alistair Sutherland - are complimented by Musical Director, Nicola Rose on keyboards. Accompanied by Harries who plays flute, pipes, and other woodwind instruments with a carefree lightness, it's an absorbing two hours.

References
King's Head Theatre, Tickets

King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London N1 1QN   Final performance, 20 Oct.