Mist Opportunity

THE MIST IN THE MIRROR

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Wednesday 15^th April, 2015

 

Oldham Coliseum is touring this adaptation of a Susan Hill novel in a bid to recreate the atmosphere and no doubt the lucrative success of the long-(still!)-running stage version of her earlier novel, The Woman in Black. Like that version, adapter Ian Kershaw uses narration and story-within-a-story to set the scene. Hill’s language, coupled with Barney George’s striking costumes evoke the Victorian period, and that works very well. Unfortunately, the production is dominated by the set. Ostensibly a black box with sections that open and close, changes of location and mood are signalled by visual effects, animated projections by a company called imitating the dog.  The images are attractive in themselves and useful for speedy depiction of a scene but I feel there is just too many of them, distracting from the action and some of the wordier passages of narration. Consequently, I am not caught up in the atmosphere and am feeling the lack of suspense. Director Kevin Shaw relies heavily on sudden loud noises to give us a jolt but on the whole the scenes are too short and bitty to permit any real build-up of tension.

Paul Warriner is our hero, a young man seeking information about his family’s mysterious past. He makes a dashing gentleman – perhaps there is too much dashing around! Jack Lord is the ‘reader’, a narrator who takes over the exposition every now and then. A lovely, rich voice but he tells the tale as if it is his, rather than reading it and being gripped by it for the first time in the book he holds as a prop. Martin Reeve crops up in a range of roles but, with all the comings and goings, I find it difficult to keep track of who is whom – another distraction from the plot. Sarah Eve and Caroline Harding play the female roles but there is not all that much for them to do.

There is a ghost popping on and off – some appearances are more effective than others – but the resolution seems rushed. And so I come away disappointed. Less of a moving storybook approach would give the story a chance. Scenes need time to breathe if they are to give us a scare, but I will say Lorna Munden’s sound design goes a long way to compensate for the show’s shortcomings. An emphasis on sound rather than visuals might have been a better way to go.