Atonement - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Written by Ian McEwan

Adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton

Directed by Adam Penford

Miriam Petche

Ian McEwan’s Atonement takes an act of intimate deceit, exploding it across years and battlegrounds into a landscape of epic romance and consequence. It only took six years for McEwan’s 2001 novel to be translated into an award-winning movie and it is screenwriter Christopher Hampton who has returned to this modern classic, this time adapting the tale for the stage.

McEwan’s story as first published was a lavish depiction of wealth, class, deceit and its consequences, as well as a study on the power of the written word. To condense such an opus into two hours on stage (including interval) is a challenge that by its very nature sees corners cut from McEwan’s brilliant original. That being said, Hampton nonetheless fashions a stimulating drama that preserves much of the essence of this richly complex yarn.

We meet the young Briony Tallis in the 1930s. A precociously gifted young teenager with a vivid imagination, as the course of a misconstrued day in her family’s Surrey mansion unfolds, Briony tells a damning lie that sees her sister Cecilia’s lover Robbie ultimately jailed for a crime that he did not commit.

Isabella Dempster plays young Briony, who the story follows from adolescence into her early adult years. Dempster ages cleverly, with her youthful impetuousness evolving into a more considered maturity as the guilt of her deception weighs increasingly heavy upon her. Miriam Petche and Jasper Talbot are respectively Cecilia and Robbie, both delivering performances of heartbreaking poignancy. Theirs was a love barely requited, the two actors capturing the human complexities of their pain in moments of theatrical excellence. The story’s epilogue features a brief appearance from Jessica Turner as the elderly Briony, in terminal decline from vascular dementia and expounding upon her lifetime of atonement. Having been only very recently cast into the role following the unexpected indisposition of the originally cast Sian Phillips, Turner’s work is outstanding.

Atonement as a narrative depends upon a classy design brief, with Chichester veteran Anthony Ward delivering exquisite settings and costumes. A combination of practical ingenuity and slick projections transfer the action across southern England and war-torn northern France, while the costuming, notably Cecilia’s stunning green dress, critical to a focal point of the story, is outstanding.

Only on at Chichester for two more weeks, one can only hope for the show to transfer. Atonement is an evening of tragically beautiful theatre.

Runs until 20th June

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

A Christmas Carol - Review

Alexandra Palace Theatre

****

Written by Charles Dickens

Adapted by Mark Gatiss

Directed by Adam Penford

Matthew Cottle and Neil Morissey

Mark Gatiss has crafted a gorgeous adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Christmas classic. That the production is staged amidst the Victoriana of the Alexandra Palace Theatre only adds to the authenticity of the evening’s charm.

Adam Penford directs Matthew Cottle as Ebenezer Scrooge. Onstage virtually throughout, Penford delivers a cracking Scrooge, whose famed redemption is as uplifting as it is heart-touching. Grabbing the star-billing in this, the fourth outing for the Gatiss adaptation, is Neil Morrisey as Jacob Marley.

“Marley was dead” is how Dickens opened his narrative. Gatiss however cleverly weaves in a prologue that sets the scene some seven years prior. The show kicks off with Marley and Scrooge working side by side at their ledgers, curmudgeonly skinflints the pair of them, before Marley with a wonderfully comic flourish, drops his quill and drops dead. It’s a marvellous Marley from Morrisey who together with every other member of the cast (apart from Cottle), endures numerous costume changes as he delivers a number of the story’s supporting characters.

While the production is very much a tremendously company-driven production, Cottle helms the narrative exquisitely – his presence continuous throughout both acts, yet never dominating and always allowing the story’s nuances and fine detail to be played out by his fellow troupers.

Remembering that this is of course a ghost story, Gatiss retains the sharpness of Dickens’s black humour while also imbuing the production with just enough ghostly spookiness and deliciously simple special effects that will mildly scare the kids without going too far. Paul Wills’s set design is an equally ingenious treat – all swirling filing cabinets, moved around as needed, with projections to crown the show’s beautiful staging. 

This is fine company work with too many names to praise – a shout out however for the two kids rostered to perform on press night, Kaycee Davis and Dexter Pulling who were spot-on throughout.

A Christmas Carol at Alexandra Palace is fabulous festive fayre!

Runs until 4th January 2026

Photo credit: Mark Douet

Punch - Review

 Apollo Theatre, London

****

Written by James Graham

Directed by Adam Penford

David Shields

First seen at the Nottingham Playhouse last year and followed by a brief run at the Young Vic, Punch arrives in the West End, examining the story of Jacob Dunne, a man who was to kill James Hodgkinson with one punch in an assault that had no murderous intent. Subsequently convicted and jailed for manslaughter, Jacob was to go on and forge a remarkably compassionate connection with James’s parents Joan and David through the little-used channel of restorative justice. James Graham has taken this real-life episode of some of the highest manifestations of the human condition and woven it into a punchy 2 1/2 hour narrative.

The play’s original cast have been maintained in a superb display of ensemble acting. Leading the show is David Shields as Jacob, onstage almost throughout the play and delivering a towering performance of Jacob’s journey. The five other members of the company assume multiple roles throughout, with standout work coming from Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst as Joan and David. Hesmondhalgh in particular offering a masterclass in the controlled rage of grief.

The evening however is an occasion of two halves, with act one a relentlessly staccato burst of expositional scenes describing Jacob, Joan and David’s lives in the build-up to the punch and in the aftermath of the fatal blow. It is not until after the interval that the writing starts to soar in his portrayal of the dynamic between Jacob and Joan & David. In the penultimate scenes the detailed dramatic tension between the three is sensational.

Anna Fleischle's stark brutalist set is immaculately lit by Robbie Butler, contributing to a production of immensely moving theatre.

Runs until 29th November

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

The Sound of Music - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Adam Penford

Gina Beck

Chichester’s regular audience will enjoy Adam Penford’s take on The Sound of Music. Following hard on the heels of the venue’s production of Sondheim’s Assassins, a show that is likely to have made an uncomfortable or even incomprehensible impression upon many of the south coast’s venerable gentlefolk, this hardy perennial from Rodgers & Hammerstein and set in 1938 Austria delivers, for the most part, an evening of absolute delight.

Gina Beck takes on the role of Maria, the local nunnery’s wobbling wimpled postulant who learns that her heart’s desire is to be found not within the convent, but rather beyond the abbey walls and in the arms of local hero and father of 7, the widowered Captain von Trapp.

Beck is quite simply the sound of musical magnificence. Rodgers & Hammerstein wisely gave her character the lion’s share of the show's (many) big numbers, and from the moment Beck rises from a trap door, sprawled across a local mountain top and singing the title number, she sets spines a’tingling. Whether partnering the show’s (excellent) company of kids or Janis Kelly’s equally wonderful Mother Abbess, Beck’s singing is a dream and her casting is an inspired choice.

Kelly of course has the responsibility for the act one closer of Climb Ev'ry Mountain which she delivers flawlessly. Study the programme notes and gasp at Kelly’s operatic credentials, for to hear her and Beck alone is worth the price of a ticket! Equally entertaining are the wonderful Emma Williams as the Captain’s briefly-engaged fiancée Elsa Schraeder and Ako Mitchell as Austrian impresario Max Detweiler. 

If there are flaws in the show they are that Edward Harrison’s von Trapp never quite matches Beck’s excellence and equally that the production’s casting seems clumsy. When Nazis and their sympathisers are played by performers of colour, what should be the horrifically racist impact of the swastikas that adorn the show’s post-Anschluss final act, is muted. The creative team should have thought longer and harder in this regard.

Designer Robert Jones works his usual magic on the Festival Theatre’s wondrous space, his work ingeniously transforming the stage from abbey to mountain top to the von Trapp residence. Likewise, Matt Samer and his 14-piece orchestra offer up a gorgeous interpretation of Rodgers’ timeless melodies. Audiences will not be disappointed.

Runs until 3rd September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan