The Ocean At The End Of The Lane - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman

Adapted by Joel Horwood

Directed by Katy Rudd

Millie Hikasa and Keir Ogilvy

A wonderful exploration of childhood, imagination and memory, the National Theatre production of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At The End Of The Lane returns from a UK tour to take up a brief residence at the Noel Coward Theatre. 

Making a remarkable West End debut, Keir Ogilvy plays the 12 year-old Boy growing up in England’s rural Sussex. He has struggled to make friends, his mother is no longer around and his family home is shared with Dad (Trevor Fox) and Sis (Laurie Ogden). It’s a neat touch denying these roles any individual names for in that depersonalisation they become us all and as Boy explores his fantasies and nightmares along with complex family relationships, there are moments (in the sometimes lengthy 2½ hours) that will resonate across the audience.

The fantasy of the story is brought to life beautifully on stage by the characters that the Boy encounters in his youth. Millie Hikasa is Lettie, Boy’s magical pal who Is not quite what she seems and who guides and protects him on his journey of discovery. There is charming work from Finty Williams as Lettie’s grandmother and the inspired creation of Ursula, played by Charlie Brooks, who is the nemesis of all things good and the villain of the piece who also meddles with some psycho-sexual manipulation of the Boy (nothing too provocative mind you) that cleverly explores the susceptible curiosity of a child’s mind.

The acting is top-notch throughout, but above all it is the ingenuity of the show’s puppetry, lighting and outstanding physical theatre that gives the evening its breathtaking charm. It is left to a black clad ensemble of four to deliver the production’s heavy lifting and it is the visual beauty of these effects, free of any modern electronic trickery or CGI that give the story an ethereal honesty. What you see is what you get. The illusions are outstanding.

An evening of exciting theatre that will appeal to all adults and kids who can lose themselves in a thrilling story, beautifully told.

Runs until 25th November

Photo credit: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

The Night Of The Iguana - Review

Noël Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written by Tennessee Williams

Directed by James Macdonald

The play's company

Set in a rundown hotel in 1940, atop the cliffs of Mexico’s Pacific coast ,  Tennessee Williams’ The Night Of The Iguana offers up a glimpse of troubled lives in a dramatic cocktail that proves as intoxicating as a well mixed rum coco. The play was inspired by Williams’ own 1940 Mexican travels and his evident love for both time and place – and all set in a period before America had been sucked into the maelstrom of World War 2 – are evident. 

Clive Owen plays the Rev Lawrence Shannon, a defrocked minister now banished from the USA and reduced to leading guided tours around the world’s less glamorous regions. Shannon has led a reluctant party of Texan schoolgirls and their teacher (Finty Williams as a wonderfully Southern Baptist Judith Fellowes) to the hotel - a stop not included on the published itinerary - and their apparent entrapment at the remote location only heightens aspects of the story’s tension. We learn that Shannon has committed statutory rape (sex with minors) and as the evening unfolds we witness this priapic priest barely able to control his lust. Owen (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jeremy Clarkson) is on stage throughout most of the play, and his delivery of this strangely, vilely, complex role is a tour de force.

Playing Maxine Faulk, the wise and recently widowed hotelier, is Anna Gunn. There is evidently a complex history to Faulk and Shannon. She knows him inside out, replete with all his failings and yet is passionately drawn to the deeply damaged man. Gunn’s work is masterful – sassy yet vulnerable, and hinting at an absolutely fascinating back story.

And then arriving at the hotel are the penniless Hannah Jelkes played by Lia Williams, a middle-aged (con) artist accompanied by her nonagenarian poet grandfather, delightfully fleshed out by Julian Glover. Williams lays down yet further sadness as Jelkes outlines her back story of a woman who has seen love pass her by, save for two seedy encounters over many decades - and a childhood that she hints at as having been traumatised by profound emotional and sexual abuse. 

This being 1940, (and the play having been written in 1961) Williams also cheekily lobs in a family of raucous Germans to his “Mexican Berchtesgaden”, Nazis fleeing Europe and using Mexico either as a gateway to South America or a back-door to the States. 

The play’s themes are as complex as they are ultimately simple - but what stands out from this three hour opus is that it was written at a time when literary craftsmanship was at its finest. Williams touches upon some of the most painful and intimate aspects of humanity - sex, love, loneliness and abuse – but does so throughout with a beautiful and carefully worded prose that displays a complete absence of profanity. The strength of The Night Of The Iguana rests upon a sensational cast bringing the most sensitive of images into relief, via their spoken word. As they perform, the most moving and painful vignettes play out in our minds’ eyes - and it makes for a truly rare event to see theatre that is so richly created and performed.

James Macdonald has assembled a masterful team of creatives. Rae Smith’s mountainous Latin mountaintop convinces on its own – but accompanied by Max Pappenheim’s exquisite soundscape, the suspension of our disbelief is complete. The Night Of The Iguana is world class theatre.


Runs until 28th September

Photo credit: Brinkhoff Moegenburg