Arts > Theatre

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

07/05/15

How do you adapt an adaptation? John Boyne’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas sold over six million copies since its release in 2006. It’s film adaption has bagged a larger audience still. Grossing at more than $40m worldwide, David Herman visualised the friendship of a Nazi commandant’s son and a young Polish Jewish Auschwitz prisoner. 

Director Joe Murphy and adaptor Angus Jackson had the job of translating this poignancy to the stage. At the beginning of the heart-rending ‘fable’, the packed out Theatre Royal were displaced to Nazi Germany. War-time music and impressive 1940’s costume cemented us in the Berlin home of Bruno, the play’s protagonist. From then on, we saw familiar Nazi atrocities through the rose-tinted eyes of nine-year old Bruno, played impeccably by Cameron Duncan. Through dialogue faithful to the novel and Cameron’s spritely demeanour, Boyne’s poetic irony translated well.

Most spectacular is the relationship between Bruno and Shmuel (Sam Peterson), who meet regularly at the concentration camp fence. Shmuel, quiet and scrawny in his oversized ‘pyjamas’, moved the audience. His relationship with the contrastingly naïve Bruno carries the play.

Whilst their friendship was enough to convey the bleak history lesson, it could have been boosted by a stronger set. The stage swung from a vignette style to  a visually advanced one, thus leaving the audiences to abruptly adapt between scenes.

Otherwise, the story of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas was told successfully. Whether you’re not too hot on Nazi German or plain fed up of history textbooks, get down to the Theatre Royal for an alternate take on the Holocaust.

7/10