Elling brings hearty dollops of humour, charm and warmth
In anyone’s language, Elling isa Nordic charmer. But don’t be deceived by the hearty dollops of humour, charm and warmth – it couldn’t survive on these ingredients alone.
Beneath the laughter and rumbustiousness, the play becomes an articulate and intelligent observation of how the world reacts to things falling outside accepted norms of behaviour. Lara Macgregor’s direction of Simon Bent’s stage adaptation launches the Court Theatre’s 2019 season on a formidably high note. If the coming months are as good as this, it’s going to be an exceptional year.
Elling also marks a longawaited stage reunion of Mark Hadlow and Ross Gumbley.
The play’s journey has taken a slightly convoluted route to reach Christchurch. In 2007, Bent created a new and successful version for London audiences of Axel Hellstenius’s original play, based on the 1996 novel Blood Brothers by Ingvar Ambjornsen.
Elling (Hadlow) is a man crushed by the overwhelming anxieties and fears that have seen him consigned to a psychiatric hospital. Here, he meets Kjell Bjarne (Gumbley), a shambling bear of a man, noisy, dishevelled, argumentative – and obsessed with food and sex.
Authorities decree that the men should be de-institutionalised and allowed to re-enter the community under the watchful but harassed eyes of social worker Frank Asli (played with panache by Gregory Cooper).
Internal and external chaos rule, but by the final curtain, and after many twists and turns, our heroes are ready to meet the world, helped by their upstairs neighbour, Reidun Nordsletten (portrayed with charm by Luanne Gordon) and a ‘‘quite famous’’ but endearingly pompous poet, Alfons Jorgensen (Bruce Phillips). Love and poetry also play a hand.
While the entire cast shine, this is Gumbley and Hadlow’s night.
Occasionally, you have the privilege of watching two individuals totally in command of their acting skills and so perfectly attuned with each other that their performances become a single highly polished entity. It’s a rare moment when this happens in theatre, but Gumbley and Hadlow achieve it in Elling – and it’s a marvel to witness. Fusing physical comedy with deftly placed humour and an understated poignancy, they transform a wellcrafted play into a truly memorable experience.