SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT. To 21 March.

Nottingham/Tour.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
translated by Simon Armitage adapted by Daniel Buckroyd.

New Perspectives Theatre Company at Lakeside Arts Centre To 31 January
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 28 Jan 1.20pm.
then tour to 21 March 2009.
Runs 1hr 50min One interval.

TICKETS: 0115 846 7777
www.lakesidearts.org.uk (Lakeside).
Review: Alan Geary: 21 January 2009.

Great poem, but a much less than great production.
Director Daniel Buckroyd of New Perspectives relishes a challenge. And he’s versatile. Here he’s taken Simon Armitage’s new translation of the circa 1400 narrative adventure poem and dramatised it.

So far so good, but instead of simply getting on with it Buckroyd over-complicates the matter. He sets his play-within-a-play as if it's being presented by four incompetent performers. You soon tire of the, presumably deliberate, rudimentary - even coarse - acting, poor mime and redundant puppetry. And you sometimes wonder who’s intended to be unenthusiastic, Gawain about being a knight or the actor about playing Gawain. Or both.

But the text, highly and often comically alliterative, and stuffed with concrete images, probably does justice to the Middle English original. It’s mostly well delivered by Vera Chok, Karl Haynes, Leigh Kelly and Freddie Machin in a host of parts, and it deserves to be; it’s vigorous and arresting.

Interestingly, people who enjoy trudging about in the Peak District of a rain-swept Saturday should see this. Listen closely to the verse: there’s a compelling theory from an academic at Keele University that the site of the final confrontation between Gawain and the giant man in green is Lud’s Church, a natural chasm just west of The Roaches. Our man from Keele is obviously right.

This production is billed as “suitable for ages 8+ and their families”, but it’s hard to imagine even the most dutiful 8-year-old really enjoying it - for an hour and fifty minutes.

Guinevere/Lady/Narrator: Vera Chok.
Arthur/Servant/Narrator: Karl Haynes.
Green Knight/Lord/Narrator: Leigh Kelly.
Gawain/Narrator: Freddie Machin.

Director: Daniel Buckroyd.
Designer: Juliet Shillingford.
Lighting: Mark Dimmock.
Composer: Matt Marks.

2009-01-26 13:32:10