BEN HUR. To 18 January.

London

BEN HUR
by Lew Wallace adapted by Carl Heap and Tom Morris Music by Giles Lewin

BAC Main Theatre To 18 January 2003
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 5.30pm Mat 19 December, 4,11,18 January 1pm No performance 24-26, 31 December, 1 January
Runs 2hr 25min One interval

TICKETS 020 7223 2223
www.bac.org.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 15 December

Another Christmas epic on a shoestring from Battersea: serious but successful.There'll be two main reactions to news of this show. 'Ben Who?' or 'How will they do the chariot race?' Billed for 7 upwards, there could be two reactions to the piece itself. It's BAC's Christmas treat, but it's also a serious story of early Christian days. Even its intervention in the Christian gospel is with Easter (handled sensitively and unsentimentally)

We start in an early 20th century mansion. Carol-singers arrive to find the family away up West, seeing some theatrical toga-show. Only the servants remain, glad to stage their own below-stairs re-creation of Wallace's novel of the old days when hatred of the Western Romans united Jew and Arab.

Cunningly, this allows a cheap-budget epic. But it also sparks the imagination: you hardly notice (and if you do, it's with delight at the wit) when cricket stumps become swords and armour's formed from silver trays and batsmen's pads.

Wallace's structure presents problems: the interval has to fall early, making for a longer second half. That's to prevent the big set-piece chariot race arriving too soon. When it comes, it's worth the wait. Toby Sedgwick's movement skills are apparent in the shifting variety of techniques used to create the speedy contest round the amphitheatre-shaped acting space.

Chairs become chariots, actors become horse-teams then momentarily disperse into other roles. At the climax, Ben Hur's team shove his enemy Messala's equines aside. It's a moment combining the scene's wit and drama – all cheered on by us, the flag-waving crowd.

However, once this is over there's a lot of sobering stuff involving Ben-Hur's rediscovery of his wrongly-imprisoned family, now afflicted with leprosy. Not to mention Jesus' Crucifixion.

It's surprising, throughout, how much of the show is straightforward storytelling. Only a few moments are picked out for ensemble highlights or audience participation (before the charioteering, we've had a row as galley-slaves and several of us been landed on by a gloved-hand pigeon).

How you take it depends what you expect – or will accept – from a Christmas show. It's no near-panto. But the company keeps a narrative grip, while the framing device allows the improvising servants' fun to show through in a celebration of performance and narrative energy.

Judah Ben-Hur: Will Adamsdale
Tirzah: Nicola Herring
Sarah/Sanballat: Louise Bangay
Amrah/Khaled: Rebecca Naylor
Simonides: Stephen Harper
Esther: Miranda Raison
Malluch/Centurion: Tom Sambrook
Messala: Rufus Jones
Drusus/Roman Soldier 2: Dafydd Gwyn Howells
Valerius Gratus/Ilderim: Toby Sedgwick
Quintus Arrius/Balthazar: Roy Weskin
Iras: Jenny Ayres
Merchant of Antioch/Torturer: Finnian O' Neill
Roman Soldier 1: Simon Evison

Director: Carl Heap
Designer: Dick Bird
Lighting: Colin Grenfell
Musical director: Giles Lewin
Movement: Toby Sedgwick
Choreographer: Sinead Rushe

2002-12-16 13:18:03