HERGES'S ADVENTURES OF TINTIN. To 21 January.
London
HERGE’S ADVENTURS OF TINTIN
adapted by David Greig and Rufus Norris
Barbican Theatre To 21 January 2006
Mon-Sat various dates 10.30am, 2pm, 2.45pm, 7.15pm no performance 2 Jan
Captioned 13 Jan
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 0845 120 7515 (booking fee)
www.barbican.org.uk (reduced booking fee)
020 7928 6363 9no booking fee)
www.youngvic.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 December
Superbly-staged moments but little forward momentum.
For a second year, the Young Vic Theatre camps out over Christmas at the Barbican while its own theatre’s being rebuilt. This year there’s literal camping as Belgian illustrator Herge’s famous cartoon character, the young journalist Tintin, takes off to rescue his friend Chang, convinced he’s survived the Himalayan plane crash everyone else is sure had no survivors. Along with dog Snowy and crusty ally Haddock, Tintin meets a Sherpa, the Yeti and Tibetan monks.
This is a bravura staging of Herge’s Tintin in Tibet, stretched across the white slopes of the Barbican stage. It opens briskly, Chang’s cries for help reaching a Tintin dozing in his chair before the panoply of Tintin-adventure regulars explode over the panavision setting, the first of several bravura staging moments. There’s Haddock striding up the mountainside ahead of the others then falling behind as other figures move backwards or forwards, and the final ascent, with Tintin, Haddock and Snowy suspended on an imagined sheer mountain-face, hanging by rope in mid-space.
Or the ghostly scene by a section of wrecked aircraft fuselage where, momentarily, dead passengers rise as if to be willed back into life. Threading through later scenes are Tibetan monks going about their spiritual business, one levitating with his vision of Chang seeking help.
All visually impressive. But the adaptors have chosen a Herge adventure unusually light on plot (most of the Tintin ‘regulars’ barely appear). And playwright David Greig’s strength is in creating telling moments rather than propelling events onwards. So the show becomes a series of images rather than a narrative. Russell Tovey’s fresh-faced Tintin spends a lot of time calling to Chang or restating his belief the lad’s alive, beyond any necessity for an audience to be repeatedly told.
That apart, he tends to recede into the general picture as we await something more than another gorgeously-staged procession over the stage. Simon Trinder, who can create humour and seriousness simultaneously, has fine moments, but they divert from rather than propel the action. This is a brilliantly-staged piece of theatre, but dramatically ends as stranded as the plane on the mountain.
Castafiore/Mrs Rama: Nicola Blackwell
Remi: Michael Camp
Haddock: Sam Cox
Pandit/Overcast Day: Graham Kent
Blessed Lighting: Steven Lim
Calculus/Head Porter/Grand Abbot: Mark Lockyer
Chang: Kenon Mann
Thomson: Jason Rowe
Thompson: Nick Tigg
Tintin: Russell Tovey
Snowy: Simon Trinder/Chester/lily/Ollie
Nestor/Pundit: Duncan Wisbey
Tharkey: Tom Wu
Yeti/Mr nRama: Miltos Yerolemou
Director: Rufus Norris
Designer: Ian McNeill
Loighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Paul Arditti
Music: Orlando Gough
Musical Director: Duncan Wisbey
Choreographer: Toby Sedgewick
Costume: Joan Wadge
Movement Captain/Martial Arts: Tom Wu
Voice: Jeanette Nelson
Illusions: Mike Stuart
Fight technical advisor: Steven Lim
Assistant director: Lucinka Eisler
2005-12-29 10:57:46