So. Having seen the play – what did our friends and media partners think?
I’d say a remarkable staging of a book that is virtually impossible to stage. Avoided going for the Juliet Stevenson angst look and delved deep into the fear factor. Could have taken a 10 minute cut (but wouldn’t have been 101 mins). Not recommended for epileptics
I don’t think the new bits worked so well. Or if they did I didn’t understand them but the staging was absolutely tremendous
It was remarkable – I knew what it was but I haven’t read the book; I was transfixed from minute 1. I have, however, seen Brazil, Gilliam’s film, which is deeply influenced by it and similar enough to merit a lawsuit probably, so I wasn’t all at sea thematically. By the end I was gripping the seat, covering my ears (such loud effects from the 4th row!) and I felt pretty traumatised! Walking out of the theatre felt like I did when I saw Mad Max recently – the world looked super odd. So glad I went.
Just brilliant. Everything about it was brilliant. I never would have thought of going to see it but it worked so well.
I loved the noises and the videos and the gory effects. Just so unlike most theatre!
- Well written. The use of repetition was good;
- Liked the use of the screen to show the scenes in the bedroom – though I thought they could’ve extended it to be used as the Telescreen;
- Good acting
- Great use of stage
- Not having an interval meant quite a few people round were fidgeting for about the last 45 minutes, which got a bit distracting.
- At times it felt like the actors weren’t projecting their voices, though I think this was an unintended consequence of the contrast created by sometimes using microphones and sometimes not.