CityLife Rating
Great Expectations
THE Library Theatre’s enviable reputation for staging first-rate productions of Charles Dickens’ classics remains unsullied.
Neil Bartlett’s superb adaptation of Great Expectations may have lost some of my favourite scenes but is beautifully directed by Roger Haines who conveys the hardship of living in Victorian England in this tale of love and redemption.
Most of us are familiar with the story of orphaned Pip and his chance encounter with an escaped convict which changes his life. But in this stage production we learn more about Pip’s parents and why, apart from his bad-tempered sister married to lovable Joe Gargery, he’s alone in the world.
From the moment that young Pip, appealingly played by Leon Williams, strikes the huge circular disc on Michael Pavelka’s mist-strewn set, we are engaged in his journey.
His past flashes before us in a video montage and this clever device is used again to stunning effect when Pip finally arrives in London with great expectations of a fortune.
Trap-doors
The cast appear and reappear, as several characters, using a series of doors which open and close to reveal surprise entrances and exits, mirrored by fascinating trap-doors in the floor revealing and concealing props and furniture.
Richard Heap makes a welcome return to the Library Theatre as a magnificent Magwitch, Blackpool-born Claire Redcliffe provides the love interest as the beautiful but cruel Estella whilst Helen Ryan is perfect as Miss Havisham, the fading beauty still wearing her wedding-dress and her broken heart, for whom time has stood still.
The other four actors people the stage with Dickens’ weird and wonderful characters, shifting props and scenery in choreographed movement.
This is outstanding family entertainment and deserves a gold star for inventiveness.
But, be warned, it’s booking fast.
Congratulations to all concerned.
Great Expectations is at The Library Theatre until Saturday, January 17. £8.50 - £16. For tickets call 0161 236 7110.
Reviewed: Mon, 08 December, 2008
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Graeme McGrath
18/12/08 15:54
Sorry but I cannot agree with the main review. It is possible to adapt Great Expectations into less than two hours and still keep it meaningful (see the David Lean movie) but it can't be Panto. In this production all the characters are so overdone as to be caricatures so any emotionally engaging aspects of relationships are lost. Every line in every scene has to have some clever business (and I agree it is clever) which just distracts. The book is about love and loss, hope and despair, optimism and and the slow rotting of the soul when attachment to life is renounced. This production is largely about having fun. Without wishing to go on I just felt it was a shame that a really good cast, great design and innovative production weren't put at the service of a story which could benefit, instead of leaving (me at least) tired and bored with the empty shell of a great story.
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