Theatre Royal Brighton – until October 3rd 2026
Reviewed by Mike Linane
4****
Mark Haddon’s book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was first published in 2003 and immediately became an award-winning international bestseller loved by millions. It is told from the point of view of a neurodivergent young man who finds a neighbour’s dog dead on the lawn. It has been murdered by having a garden fork plunged through its body.
In 2012 it was adapted into a stage play by Simon Stephens and during its premiere run it tied the record for winning the most Olivier Awards (seven), including Best New Play.
This is a new re-worked production where the main protagonist, previously Christopher, is now a young girl named Chris. It is the same story as before but now seen through the eyes of a female autistic lens and some of the other characters have also been given a gender swap.
Now, instead of being seen through the eyes of Chris, her story is told as if a play within a play with one of her school mentors Siobhan reading from Chris’s personal account of her life. We still fully understand the turmoil, stress and confusion that Chris experiences daily as her account is so vividly written and performed.
Once Chris discovers the dead body of Wellington, the dog, she determines to find out who killed him and why. It seems to her to be a perfectly natural thing to do. Little does she realise the can of worms she is about to open and the repercussions that are set to follow. She encounters resistance from many neighbours, but mostly from her widowed father, Ed. Chris argues to herself that many rules are made to be broken, so she continues to search for an answer oblivious to the trauma she is causing some pf the people around her.
Chris also experiences trauma of her own in the face of the opposition she faces and we witness how she tries to cope with this and simple everyday living by chanting numbers to herself – but not just any old numbers – she chants complicated square roots numbers that are well above the knowledge of ‘normal’ people, but then Chris is also a maths genius capable of solving mathematical problems well above her years and also a massive Sherlock Holmes fan (hence the title of the play).
Alex Keenan who is making her professional stage debut in this production is neurodivergent herself and gives a tremendous performance as the troubled teenager trying to live a normal life in a world that is a daily challenge to her. To help us understand what is going on in her head the use of screen graphics is used, though I was expecting to see more than I actually did. Alex’s performance really helps the audience to understand a little bit about what it must be like to live on the autistic spectrum.
Latest research suggests that between 15-20 per cent of the British population have some form of neurodivergence and yet it is often remains misunderstood. There is still a lot of stigma around autism and there are still stereotypes in people’s minds. This play, and Alex’s performance in particular, will go some way to correcting this.
Alex’s alternate Chris, Imi Price, is also neurodivergent.
Joe McFadden and Charlie Brooks (both more famous for tv roles) play Chris’s parents. One dead and one alive. These are not easy roles to portray as being loving parents they only want the best for their child and to protect her from the harsh realities of life but also have to sometimes do things which they think is right which their daughter is totally opposed to and they manage to convey the anguish they have had to go through on a daily basis since their child was diagnosed sympathetically.
Bridgette Amofah plays Siobhan, the narrator of the play, and it is through her reading of the journal that we follow Chris’s journey to finding out what really happened to the dead dog and, most importantly, what happens next when Chris has to cope with the discovery of who the murderer actually is.
This might sound like a depressing subject for a play, but it really isn’t. It has its moments of humour as well and is also an opportunity for the audience to spend a couple of hours in the mind of Chris and experience what it is like to be her. Whilst we might not always agree with the course of action she is taking, we are always willing her on to succeed and surmount the challenges she faces around her. When she hurts, we hurt. When she is happy, so are we. When she triumphs, we cheer her on!
Audiences will leave the theatre with a lot to think about concerning how they treat people who are different to the rest of us in future, no matter how small or large that difference is.
This really is a life-affirming play and one I suggest will appeal to audiences of all ages. The performance I attended had many schoolchildren there and they were all as quiet as a church mouse throughout so gripped and absorbed were they by what they were seeing before them.
A must-see play that hopefully will help to make the world a tiny bit more of a better place.