Swallows and Amazons at WYP.

Swallows And Amazons was always going to be a difficult one for me.

Even before I took my seat I was irritated mightily by a sentence in the programme, which mentioned that early in his career Arthur Ransome had got a job on the left of centre newspaper The Daily News and “in 1917 became one of the most notorious Western apologists for Bolshevism.” Erm . . . yes. Or, alternatively, if you happened to be a non Daily Mail reading normal Muscovite on the street back then Ransome was one of the few foreign journalists brave and clear sighted enough to report what was going on in those terrible but amazing days after Russia had withdrawn from the universal bloodbath that the apologists for Western Imperialism were busy celebrating. Just saying.

I also have a bit of a personal beef with Arthur Ransome. I’d won the book at Middle school for scoring second in my year. Arjit, the kid who came first, was some kind of maths whizz, and he got to choose the first prize. He pointed to The Bombard by Henry Treece, a handsome Bodley Head hardback. I’d wanted that book – it had explosions, and collapsing mine shafts, and chain mail, and bloodshed – and I’d written a play (in French!) that I produced and directed with the assistance of a couple of academically dull but needy and attention hogging classmates (yes, you guessed it, they went on to become actors.) Arjit just got a few sums right. I’d done some culture. And he came first. There, in that little vignette, is encapsulated all that is wrong with the status of the arts in this country.

Swallows and Amazons is inextricably linked with inferiority in my mind.

I did try to read the thing though. Absolutely hated it. With a passion that disturbed me at the time. I wasn’t used to being a critical reader but Ransome’s book taught me that not everything that gets committed to print is worth spending time with. I simply couldn’t relate to the story. I wanted to punch every single character. I wanted to track down the author and take a hammer to his typewriter. It was the first book I ever gave away – actually, Arjit swapped me for The Bombard and a pocketful of marbles. Always the entrepreneur that kid.

Obviously now I’m all grown up I can put aside my childish prejudices and enjoy the adaptation for the stage. Or at least I could try.

The play begins with a bunch of excruciating middle class kids on holiday who get a letter from their dad allowing them to go off exploring an island. Yes, dad communicates to his offspring via the post office. I’m not assuming the local social services child protection department is monitoring contact, though perhaps they ought given that dad seems perfectly content to send the kids off sailing around some islands – one of the kids is eight and doesn’t swim – inhabited only by feral underclass kids and decidedly dodgy adult males

There’s some messing about on boats. They pack a picnic. Mum seems happy at the prospect of getting shut of the kids for a bit too. Can’t say I blamed her.

Anyway, the story left me as cold as it did thirty odd years ago. At the half time break I worried if I’d made a wrong choice of evening entertainment and wondered if I should make a break for it.

Just as the second half was announced I downed my glass of wine and decided to concentrate on anything but the flimsy narrative, the irritating characters, and my tangential antipathy to the book.

Which worked. The Amazons are much more prominent in the second half and provided a dash of necessary gorm and grit to counterbalance the saccharine Swallows. There was plenty of good knockabout fun (the attack on the house boat/walking the plank scene was genuinely funny and the actors were evidently having a great time which came across strongly.) The music seemed to take off too, especially the dream pirates and the black spot songs. Both songs showed what a very clever lyricist Neil Hannon really is, and they were performed with huge gusto. Some very simple set pieces worked well too. The bit where the actors took the toy boats into the audience raised a lot of smiles. And the Mr Shifters were brilliant – I mean the guys dressed as 1930’s proles (assume that was some sort of jibe at Ransome’s commie past, but could be wrong) – who did everything from lugging the sets around to pretending to be a violent storm to providing constant musical accompaniment. They were a great idea.

The show got a rousing racket of applause. Well deserved. The acting, singing, dancing was top notch, everything looked and sounded great, and the audience – especially the kids – seemed really to enjoy it. In fact the group of young people I was sat next to thought it was the best thing they had seen all year and I know plenty of people there thought it was amazing.

I left pretty perplexed. With a question. What do you do, think, feel, when you hate the content but admire the energy, style and sheer talent of the delivery? There’s no question that – minus the Arthur Ransome bit – it’s a bloody good show . . . and it’s on till the weekend so still time to go and make your own mind up.

Tuesday to Saturday, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Quarry Hill, Leeds, £16. Tel: 0113 2137700. www.wyp.org.uk