Taking Dylan as gospel ...
Girl From The North Country (Noel Coward Theatre, London) Verdict: It’s Dylan, Bob; but not as we know him
I LOVE Bob Dylan and I love the lyrical Irish playwright Conor McPherson, who is best known for his West End hit The Weir. But together in this soulful musical that has now moved from the Old Vic to the West End proper? I’m not so sure.
Plenty of people did love Simon Hale’s frequently gospel-driven arrangement of the songs, but I prefer my Dylan raw. Ah, the clang of guitar, the shriek of harmonica and the rasp of obstructed sinuses!
And where McPherson usually delves deep into characters in the sweet melancholy of his own plays, here the 13 drifters passing through a boarding house in Bob Dylan’s home town of Duluth, Minnesota, in the wake of the Thirties Depression all felt a bit sketchy.
The first song to really silence an oddly restless audience at this week’s final preview was from Sheila Atim with Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anyone Seen My Love), and again in the second half with Dylan’s angriest love song, Idiot Wind. Atim, who has an achingly lovely voice, plays the adoptive daughter of Ciaran Hinds — the man who runs the boarding house.
Big ensemble numbers such as the jaunty Hurricane create a barn-dance atmosphere after the interval, and McPherson’s device of lost souls passing through the boarding house en route to eternity holds the show together.
With musical instruments and drum kits scattered among the furnishings, and actors gathering around mics for backing vocals, my companion’s enigmatic verdict on the unconventional show was: ‘different’.
But it left me craving more Dylan and McPherson — independent of each other.