National Theatre until June 22
Tickets: 020 3989 5455
The cocktail of Charles Dickens, singer/songwriter PJ Harvey and playwright Ben Power is a teasing prospect.
This ambitious attempt to distil the 800-plus pages of the novelist’s last book into a not-quite-a-musical of just under four hours is admirable, even if it isn’t entirely successful.
The tale of two separate families who intersect through love and death revolves around the river Thames. As a body is pulled up in the opening scene, robbed and then delivered to the authorities, it is clear this will be a dark tale and Harvey’s twisted, sinewy songs reflect the mood throughout.
Themes of poverty, social mobility and education compete for attention through the principal characters – notably Bella (Bella Maclean) thwarted of her marriage, Charley (Brandon Grace) who is Hell-bent on self improvement and cadaverous schoolmaster Bradley Headstone (Scott Karim) about whom doll dressmaker Jenny Wren (scene-stealing Ellie-May Sheridan) says “I don’t think he could teach you anything except how to drink blood and sleep in a coffin.”
On a bare stage over which a shifting lighting rig rises and falls like the ebb and flow of a tidal water, director Ian Rickson shepherds the large cast of lawyers, women and human water rats through a complex story of murder, mistaken identity, inheritance and male entitlement with assurance.
A dark and stormy night.
