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For all the insistence on charms in the plot of The Secret Garden, Adrian Noble's Royal Shakespeare Co. London preem of a decade-old show could use some plain, flat-out charm if it is to cast a theatrical spell beyond children's holiday time. There's no denying the care and attention that have gone into rethinking a Broadway long-runner from 1991 only now receiving its London debut, if only so that a musical based on a beloved English children's classic will feel at home in its country of origin. But for all the cosmetic changes from the New York original -- a far less busy set, a swifter opening sequence, some reordering and reworking of both the book and Lucy Simon's buoyant score -- the show still feels suspended between a banal self-help handbook and a troubling inquiry into real grief that the creators don't seem to know what to do with.
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