CityLife

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.<br />