Da Vinci Code heading from page to stage
THE clues were tough to decipher but once unravelled, they led to a startling discovery.
Dan Brown’s enormously successful book The Da Vinci Code, which has sold 100 million copies — and counting — since it was published 17 years ago, is bound for the UK stage, with a world premiere national tour starting in the spring.
Responding to my enquiries with a statement, Brown said he’s ‘incredibly excited’ to see the novel ‘I poured my heart into almost 20 years ago ... go from page to the stage’.
Fans may remember that Brown’s tome opens at the Louvre, where an albino monk grapples in a fight to the death with an art curator. A Caravaggio painting is involved.
Soon, we meet Brown’s protagonists: Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of art history and religious symbolism — a sort of brainbox Indiana Jones — and whip-smart French police cryptologist Sophie Neveu. Together, the pair charge across Europe on a quest to decode the meaning of a series of cryptic anagrams and numerical clues.
The dashing Professor Langdon is described as ‘Harrison
Ford in Harris tweed’ — though it was Tom Hanks who played him in the 2006 film version, which also starred Audrey Tautou as Neveu.
The cast for the stage adaptation, by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, has not been settled yet, though director Luke Sheppard told me he and producer Simon Friend have begun the process of looking for ‘two extraordinary actors’ to play the adventurous experts.
Friend has also brought stage designer David Woodhead and video guru Andrzej Goulding on board.
Sheppard said the key is not to try to replicate the Hollywood blockbuster. ‘ We’re not being lured into that trap,’ he said. ‘ We’re aiming to be inventive and innovative.’
He cited, as an example, the breakneck car chase through Paris featured in both the book and the film. ‘We can’t compete with that,’ he said. Instead, he and the designers have come up with an ingenious way of doing it theatrically.
Sheppard said he and Woodhead met up in a park last week — respecting lockdown rules — so the designer could show him a cardboard model of the set. ‘We sat on a bench and I studied it from a distance,’ he said.
Friend told me that the ‘succinct’ two-hour show (the ponderous movie ran close to three hours!) will embark on a 33-week tour, kicking off at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, on April 3.