The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
This was a great show, well written, well acting, and one which explored challenging themes. How to top that? The answer was in a tiny epilogue, which those hasty to catch the last bus home might have easily missed. To say more would be spoil a lovely surprise, but I will say it left a big, fat silly smile on my face.
Theatre Royal
When I first saw the National Theatre’s biggest break out hit since War Horse, it was in the intimate space of the Cottesloe theatre, and took place in the round, with the actors up close and personal. Ten years on, it was with a degree of nervousness that I came to this revival tour. How would the production scale up, how would it be staged within a traditional proscenium arch, and perhaps most importantly, how could they hope to match Matthew Barker’s stunning performance as the autistic protagonist? I’m pleased to report that this production succeeded on all three fronts.
First and foremost, Connor Curren was excellent as Christopher Boone – if anything coming across more authentically youthful. The National Theatre have made no secret of Curren’s own neurodivergence, and while he is primarily an outstanding actor, there was a rawness to his portrayal that was surely borne out of personal experience. Without lapsing into caricature, he portrayed the troubled young boy with sensitivity and humour. Boone is an unreliable narrator, something much easier to convey on the page than the stage, and this is something the production tackles by having his diary read out on stage. It makes for a somewhat pedestrian opening, not helped by Rebecca Root’s underplaying of his teacher. Nonetheless, the production quickly spiralled off into a clever meta-play that acknowledged the fallibility of the medium, capitalising on the stunning visual presentation afforded by Bunny Christie’s innovative staging. What could have been flashy, but ultimately reductive, special effects actually enhanced and explained the tilting, off-kilter world that Boone inhabits. His is a tiny world of a single street that he rarely steps beyond, captured beautifully by setting the production entirely within a giant cube, and inhabited by an ensemble cast waiting their turn to do their bit.
I got the sense that some of the cast were still settling in to their run at the Theatre Royal, although Siu-see Hung and Joanne Henry were very strong from the outset. Foremost in the cast, however, was Tom Peters, as Christopher’s long suffering father with his touching portrayal of a man that is neither saint nor sinner. He loves his son, but is exasperated by him, and Peters manages to capture that ambivalence with a carefully pitched presentation of an ordinary man caught up in extra-ordinary circumstances. He is matched by Christopher’s fractured memories of his mother, played with admiral restraint by Kate Kordel. To say more about Kordel’s part in the play would be to spoil a major shift in the narrative, but she too, manages to tread a fine line, eliciting sympathy rather than condemnation for the difficult choices her character makes.
Much of the credit for this nuanced balance is down to Simon Stephens brilliant adaptation, which so effectively brings to life real people dealing with real issues, notwithstanding the extraordinary setting those events take place in. Paul Constable’s lighting and Finn Ross’s video was at times breath-taking in ingenuity and showmanship, so it’s a testament to both the writing and the performance of the leads that it nevertheless never overshadowed the themes explored. On the contrary, together they were a reminder that sometimes there is no story telling medium that can match live theatre for both spectacle and intimacy.
This was a great show, well written, well acting, and one which explored challenging themes. How to top that? The answer was in a tiny epilogue, which those hasty to catch the last bus home might have easily missed. To say more would be spoil a lovely surprise, but I will say it left a big, fat silly smile on my face.
