THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE
Duke Of York’s Theatre until February 12. Tickets: 03330 096 690
It begins with a suicide and ends with a sacrifice. Yet Joel Horwood’s stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s dark fantasy novel is far from depressing. Such is the vividness of the characters and the exemplary staging by director Katy Rudd that it is an uplifting, awe-inspiring experience for adults young and old.
Widower Dad (Nicolas Tennant) tries to bring up his young son Boy (James Bamford) and daughter Sis (Grace HoggRobinson) as best he can but money is tight and his last lodger killed himself in a car in the woods.
Boy ventures into the woods during a storm and meets strange young Lettie Hempstock (Nia Towle) who takes him to shelter in the ancient family farm belonging to her mother (Siubhan Harrison) and grandmother (Penny Layden).
All three women seem to belong to a different time, if not a different world – the ’Old World’ – and they have unearthly powers. When something crosses over into the present world in human female form, it disrupts the status quo, threatening Dad, Sis and Boy – the latter being the only one who knows what she/it really is.
A story about hope and despair, innocence and wonder, it employs magical realism while keeping one foot in the real world. Embellished with allusions to Lewis Carroll, HP Lovecraft and George MacDonald’s Phantastes, it transfers beautifully from page to stage through sensitive performances, special effects, and puppetry that is all the more effective for being used sparingly.
A wondrous and moving night.
The writers’ insistence that this misbegotten musical is based on the source novel rather than the film starring Robert Redford is disingenuous.
Far fewer people will be aware of the source material than the Hollywood adaptation of the story in which a wealthy man offers a hard-up couple a million dollars to spend one night with the woman.
This flimsical creation from Dylan Scholsberg (composer) and Michael Conley (book and lyrics) barely scratches the surface of the relationship between impoverished songwriter Jonny (Norman Bowman, overdoing the scruffy troubadour thing) and Rebecca (Lizzy Connolly), the privileged girl who has downgraded for no discernible reason.
Set in a third-rate casino in Atlantic City where the resident singer (Jacqueline Dankworth) invites Jonny onstage, it unfolds in fits and starts. When filthy rich gambler Larry (Ako Mitchell) makes the indecent proposal of the title, Rebecca says no while Jonny says, “Er... no”. His hesitation forms the pivot of the dilemma – what would you do for a million dollars?
The banal lyrics and music – played with squawking adequacy by the onstage band – and a set design that requires a bed to be manoeuvred from beneath the casino stage, do little to assist Charlotte Westenra’s production that leaks credibility from the start.
Dankworth emerges unscathed due to the fact that she can sing well and gets the only decent song. The rest is irredeemably awful.