The Lowry, Salford Manchester. 21 January – 4 February 2017. Reviewed by Margaret Baguley
The acclaimed National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was one of the most enjoyable plays I’ve seen in a long while.
The acting was superb, the cast very funny, the scenery was very inventive, the lighting and music were intoxicating.
I thought it helped give an understanding of the mind of someone with autism. I loved the book and thought it came alive on stage due to Simon Stephens clever adaption of Mark Haddon’s novel. The plot was easy to follow and Scott Reid gave a wonderful performance. The whole production plunges us into Christopher’s world, from the storytelling , a clever play-within-a-play nod to the novel which is written as by Christopher himself, to the claustrophobic sounds, lights and projection that take over any time Christopher is overwhelmed. I liked the use of a narrator (a calm and collected Lucianne McEvoy as teacher Siobhan acts as narrator) for some of Christopher’s thoughts and words but it didn’t take anything away from Christopher’s part – it seemed to help the flow of the story.
The changes in the scenes were inventive and gave a real sense of the story but the best of the scenery was undoubtedly the station scenes they were realistic – Bunny Christie’s marvellous geometric set becomes a claustrophobic underground station with the right sound and vision enhanced by the smoky atmosphere and the sound track thanks to Paule Constable’s lighting, Finn Ross’ video and Ian Dickinson’s sound design. And finally the use of a real puppy at the end was a nice touch