A midweek matinee is, invariably, either an OAP-fest or, as today, a school kids special. The over-excited crowd of e-numbered rugrats took a little while to settle down, and continued to titter whenever an f-word was used, but otherwise were enraptured.
The stage was set as we took to our seats with the titular dog, supine and speared by a rather nice Spear & Jacksons garden fork, centre stage. From that rather surprising start the story took off as Christopher, an Aspergers sufferer (or embracer, he would say) tried to unravel the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. With unbelievably meticulous choreography the set became in turn a bedroom, a garden, a street, a tube station and everything inbetween. The three sided set, reaching high up into the flies, is a vast electronic chalk board and LED display.
Christopher's special issues both help and hinder his investigations; unable to lie he believes everyone else is the same. His complete inability to be touched means his only tactile experiences are via a Vulcan Mind Meld-like touching of finger tips.
While the main thrust of the story, and the starting point, is who killed the dog, it soon develops into Christopher's attempt to understand social interaction with the various people in his life
While this is a tour de force for the lead actor, Joshua Jenkins in most performances but sometimes Chris Ashby, the rest of the company is paramount in making this a seamless piece of storytelling that embraces modern technology to get inside the mind of a 'different' teenager as he tries to use his unquestionably amazing mathematical and pure logical thinking to unravel a mystery and push the boundaries of his social comfort zone.
The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night is on at Curve until Saturday 13 June and additional tickets have just been released.
© Paul Towers 10/6/2015
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