Review by: Paul Towers, 04 March 2019
The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff & Duncan Abel
Directed by Anthony Banks
A Simon Friend, Ambiln Partnership & Josh Andrews
presentation
Curve until Saturday 9th March 2019
“thrilling as the wait for a Southern Rail commuter service.”
The book by Paula Hawkins was a bestseller within a
couple of months of being published in 2015. It was made into a film in 2016 and
became a stage play in 2018.
While the book, apparently, was a multi layered
psychological thriller the stage version is plodding, boring and uninspiring.
Rachel (Samantha Womack) is an ex-commuter who continues to
take the train into town long after she has lost her job and looks in other people’s
back gardens fantasising what her life might be like. It is while voyeuristically
eavesdropping that she notices neighbour Megan (Kirsty Oswald) kissing a man
who is not her husband. So far very Hitchcock’s Rear View and Agatha Christie’s 4.50 to Paddington. Megan
disappears, presumed dead, and Rachel selectively remembers being in the
vicinity of the last sighting. Already I am bored rigid.
As the ‘curtain’ rose there was a scene with ex-husband Tom
(Adam Jackson-Smith) in Rachel’s pig sty of a flat to, I suppose, show what an
alcoholic slob she is. I never really got to the bottom of why Rachel was so
central to finding the killer and why her drinking was so important. I won’t
spoil the ending because for a whodunit I really didn’t care whodunit.
The laborious script only came to life in the last 10
minutes by which time I had lost the will to live. It was only saved by the occasional
flashes of humour which appeared to be accidental rather than scripted.
All of the cast were quite adequate actors, most of them
were actually able to project past the first 10 rows in the stalls.
The set was the most exciting thing in the whole production
with imaginative lighting (most of the time) and a suitably atmospheric
soundtrack. Although it was unclear why the therapist’s chairs came down from
the ceiling on cables rather than slid across the stage like everything else.
All in all The Girl On The Train was as thrilling as the wait
for a Southern Rail commuter service.
Tickets for the rest of the week are available at www.curveonline.co.uk
First published on Western Gazette
No comments:
Post a Comment