In awarding a five-star review last summer to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, after its transfer to London’s Gielgud Theatre, I urged readers to be sure to see the show when it reached Oxford this summer.
My advice remains the same after revisiting this National Theatre production, recast for the tour, at Aylesbury this week. Indeed, I shall offer a bit more: book now or you risk missing it. Scarcely a ticket remains for the Buckinghamshire performances and similar success looks likely here.
There’s a three-fold reason for the stampede for tickets.
First, the huge popularity of Oxford author Mark Haddon’s brilliant novel concerning the adventures of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome (a term Haddon now backs off from).
Second, the fact that the book is now a set text in schools around the world. And third the general recognition, arising from all the reviews, that Simon Stephens has made a first-class job of translating the work to the stage.
Under director Marianne Elliott, the story exercises the same mesmerising grip on the stage as on the page. More so, indeed, because the production comes replete with many of the devices that contribute to the special magic of theatre.
A visual feast is supplied in designer Bunny Christie’s interactive set, whose walls respond, as if computer screens, to input from the actors. Their graph-paper-like appearance reflects the mathematical obsession of hero Christopher (Joshua Jenkins, superb) who turns detective to investigate the murder of a neighbour’s dog with a garden fork.
Jenkins’s is a winning portrait, for all its depiction of the frightening temper tantrums that result from Christopher’s various no-noes. These include being touched, exposure to noise and dislike of certain colours.
Who can fail to be affected by his subtle emotional dealings with his school mentor Siobhan (Geraldine Alexander), his dad (Stuart Laing) and absent mother (Gina Isaac)? Or to be thrilled by the lad’s amazing journey to London, with the escape of his pet rat Toby on the Underground?
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Aylesbury Waterside
* Until Saturday
* Tickets: 0844 871 7607, atgtickets.com/aylesbury
New Theatre, Oxford, July 14-18
* Tickets: 0844 871 3020, atgtickets.com/oxford
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