adaptation
aleks.sierz
So far, it could be said that the National Theatre is having a good lockdown. Every week, this flagship streams one of its stock of NT Live films, which are always a welcome reminder of the range of its output over the past decade or so. This week it’s the turn of Danny Boyle’s much-praised 2011 production of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, adapted for stage by Nick Dear, and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, who alternate the roles of the scientist and the so-called monster on each successive evening, offering a masterclass in interpretative acting.The familiar story is told Read more ...
Normal People, BBC One review – adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel evokes the deep cut of first love
Joseph Walsh
Sally Rooney’s 2018 novel, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, was a psychologically rich, emotive journey into the psyches of two Irish teenagers who fall in love. Only two years on from publication, it has been turned into a 12-part series from the BBC and Hulu. Rooney’s plot was simple. Working-class boy Connell, who’s popular at school, catches the eye of the socially awkward rich girl Marianne, and we follow their on-off relationship from upper-sixth to university. The novel had its detractors, but for most readers the way Rooney elegantly rendered the inner lives of Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Swaggering pirates, X marks the spot, a chattering parrot, “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum”? All present and correct. But Bryony Lavery’s winning 2014 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson for the National, directed by Polly Findlay, also features key updates and wonderfully creative ideas, plus a good blend of horror and humour. With a 10+ age recommendation, this lively two-hour piece is excellent lockdown family viewing.Crucially, the production’s gender rebalancing makes this fun for all: Stevenson’s protagonist Jim Hawkins becomes a thrill-seeking, androgynous, “smart as paint” girl, Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
With influences as diverse as Hitchcock’s Vertigo to 2010’s Catfish, Safy Nebbou’s genre-splicing French-language feature, starring Juliette Binoche, comes loaded with a heady mix of cheap thrills and surprising psychological depth. And it’s a hoot from start to finish. Nebbou’s sixth and most accomplished feature is an adaptation of Camille Lauren’s 2016 novel, ‘Celle que vous croyez’. Binoche is Claire, a fifty-something literature professor, with two children from a failed marriage. We meet her being interviewed by a psychiatrist, Doctor Bormans (Nicole Garcia), the Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The National Theatre’s online broadcasts got off to a storming start with One Man, Two Guvnors – watched by over 2.5 million people, either on the night or in the week since its live streaming, and raising around £66,000 in donations. Let’s hope that engagement continues with their next offering: Sally Cookson’s dynamic adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, a Bristol Old Vic and National Theatre co-production which also toured the UK.Cookson’s devised work blows past the problems associated with transferring literature to stage. There is nothing stuffy or static about her version; on the Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The latest in Sadler’s Wells’ Digital Stage programme – an impressively assembled online offering to keep audiences entertained during the shutdown – is balletLORENT’s family-friendly dance-theatre production Rumpelstiltskin. It was streamed as a "matinee" on Friday afternoon, and is available to watch for free on Sadler’s Wells’ Facebook and YouTube for a week.The 90-minute work, first seen in 2018 and filmed for broadcast at Northern Stage, was the third successful collaboration between director Liv Lorent and then poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy – once again Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
With over one hundred books to her name and several hugely popular TV spin-offs, including the Tracy Beaker adventures, Jacqueline Wilson takes a no-nonsense approach to children’s fiction that reflects the realities of jigsaw families, mental and divorce. In 2012, in something of a detour from the rest of her work, she wrote a sequel of sorts to E. Nesbit’s beloved magical children’s classic, Five Children and It. Nesbit’s book has been adapted a myriad of times, including the charming 1990s BBC version and the less successful 2004 take with Eddie Izzard. It’s a familiar Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born French filmmaker, has a reputation that precedes her. Her upbringing was the subject of the acclaimed films Persepolis (2007) and Chicken With Plums (2011). Persepolis won the Cannes Jury Prize, two César awards and was nominated for an Oscar. Satrapi adapted and co-directed both films. She also wrote and illustrated the comic books on which they were based. Over the past ten years, Satrapi has parlayed her success as a cartoonist into a formidable career as a filmmaker. Her latest film is her biggest. Radioactive is a wide-ranging biopic about the life of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Adapted by Kate O’Riordan from her own novel, Penance is a taut little thriller spread over three consecutive nights. It’s not going to rock the planet off its axis, but there’s enough twisty and salacious intrigue to keep you coming back.There’s a deluxe, feature-film-like quality about the production, and its pedigree cast doesn’t hurt. Julie Graham plays Rosalie Douglas, a 50-ish former care-worker who now runs three of her own care homes. Her husband Luke is played by Neil Morrissey, who seems to have cornered the market on weak, feckless husbands and carries on the tradition here. Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Nick Rowland marks his breakout from TV drama with this very competent feature, an adaptation of Colin Barrett’s short story. Set in a bleak, rural Ireland, Cosmo Jarvis plays Arm, an ex-boxer with an estranged girlfriend, a non-verbal, autistic five-year-old son and the kinds of friends who get him into trouble. Chief among them is Dympna (Barry Keoghan, in a wholly chilling performance), the heir apparent to the local drug-dealing Devers clan. Dympna exploits Arm’s pugilism to add muscle to his verbal threats. Violence is the Devers’ modus operandi and Calm with Horses veers Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
It’s hard to believe that Jesse Armstrong (Succession, Veep) co-wrote the screenplay for this feeble American remake of Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure (2014). Where Force Majeure is subtle, dark and original (never have electric toothbrushes seemed so significant) Downhill is an unfunny flop in spite of comedy stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (she’s also a co-producer) as leads.It might have been more successful, perhaps, if directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Descendants, The Way, Way Back) hadn’t stuck so slavishly to the original storyline about family Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Back in 2017, writer-director Eliza Hittman won over audiences with her beautiful coming-of-age drama Beach Rats. Her latest film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, is a more quietly devastating drama, shifting the focus away from sexual awakenings to a more politically charged arena.Autumn (newcomer Sidney Flanigan) first appears as your average sullen 17-year-old of few words, living in a tightknit Pennsylvania town. Then we realise that her silence might have a reason. Jocks at a school talent show taunt her with cries of ‘slut!’ Her parents ignore this, just as they ignore her. Read more ...