Dear Octopus - Lyttelton, NT

I really enjoyed this last night from my £10 seat in the last row of the circle.

It's very slow burn and will be too long and subtle for many tastes I fear (I noticed a few restless people towards the end of Act 2 and a couple of non returners post interval) but it's wonderfully written with great nuanced performances across the board from the cast and some brilliant comedic lines. Despite the eve of world war 2 setting the themes it covers are as timeless as aging itself!

And a really fantastic set with great lighting and sound.

A big thumbs up from me. The National doing what the National does best! Sheer escapism and great storytelling on a wet Thursday evening!

Loved this. Well cast, acted and directed. Old fashioned? Yes. Perfect for me! Great to see the cast mostly acting "in period" - it can be done! Harriet Walter in attendance too.

Saw this tonight, and thought it was marvellous.

A perfectly staged, perfectly acted family drama, that makes Chekhov feel melodramatic, but which is gripping in it's smallness, in it's detailed characterisations.

For me, the most minutely observed period piece at the National since "After the Dance."

Absolutely exquisite, with an exquisite ensemble fizzing with the chemistry of recognisable family dynamics, informed by a profound understanding of human nature, I found it deeply moving.

Lindsay Duncan is a laugh riot.

Some spoilers follow. . .

There are dramatic templates that you can imagine were in Dodie Smith's mind when she wrote this, for example, there is something of Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" about the way Bessie Carter's family "companion," Fenny, has doe eyes for golden son, Billy Howle's Nicholas, who just sees her as a friend.

But again, this is minutely observed, and makes Jane Austen seem even more melodramatic than Chekhov, so it never quite plays the way you think.

Howle's character was originated in 1938 by John Gielgud, and having so recently seen "The Motive and the Cue," I found myself imagining how Gielgud might have played the part, as every line of Nicholas is amenable to Gielgud's bouncy, plummy, witty, fast-talking delivery complete with emphatic punchline.

Howle doesn't do that. Instead, he just exists in the role, in the character's day to day joviality, punctuated by brief moments of existential angst, inhabiting the lines naturalistically, losing laughs to enhance authenticity.

That authenticity is there in every performance, even that of the children, such a good job has Emily Burns, the director, done with the staging and performances.

Bessie Carter's Fenny, especially, is so detailed in her reactions to everyone around her that you can't help being drawn in to her (small) dramas.

Sometimes, there are massive laughs to be had in the character interplay. Such is the case with Lindsay Duncan's matriarch, who has spent so much of her life organising other people's lives that every time she does it, and she does it again and again, it gets funnier and funnier. Precisely because Duncan never overplays or overemphasises any of it. It's just who her character is, a deadpan bulldozer bluntly and gently butting heads with a family constantly ducking out of her way lol.

Smith is at once deeply liberal (her characters by and large live and let live) and deeply conservative (family bonds are everything), with a lowercase "l" and a lowercase "c" respectively, and the effect is like that of a warm embrace.

Among the tiny human day to day battles being fought by the characters, I rejoiced in Kate Fahy's Belle's caustic and brazen battle with aging, with Bethan Cullinane's Cynthia's awkward battle with secrecy, with Jo Herbert's Hilda's matter-of-fact battle with OCD, with Amy Morgan's Margery's pragmatic battle with mundanity and with Malcolm Sinclair's heartfelt battle with mediocrity. Small battles, big feelings.

Ultimately, this superb ensemble proves that what goes around comes around: what was once old can feel so fresh and new again.

Simply wonderful. 5 stars from me.

Trivia note - the part of the small boy (Bill?) was originated in the West End by Leslie Phillips

I really liked this. Time for a Dodie Smith revival!

Might be that HW had an awful lot of exposure through The Crown and Succession (LD had a fleeting role in The Today Show).

At one time this would have appealed to the NT’s traditional core audience but under Norris’ programming that audience is no longer “core”, so maybe they’re trying to attract back their traditional audience.

I saw this last night and loved it - a bit of a slow burn in the first act but it all builds beauifully and it is meticulously designed and directed. Sterling performances all around especially from Ms Duncan, Mr Sinclair and a breakout performance from Bessie Carter. And kudos to the casting decisions which brought in Global Majority actors seamlessly into the fabric of an English family. Realistic? Probably not, but it infused the play with a contemporary context and did so quite convincingly.

This felt like a very traditional old National play (and I mean that in a faint praise sort of way) - almost refreshing not to feel particularly updated. Luxury casting, a revolve and substantive looking sets, big cast and relatively conventional English family at the heart of it.

I did however feel the play was actually hampered by having too many characters, many of whom had no real story arc.

It came alive particularly when the siblings were back in the nursery - differing memories, aging and the feel of the passing of time. Otherwise, I must say I expected more to happen, the revolve sometimes revolved just because it could (but it was very nice too), and the war hardly seemed to affect them and was confined to the wireless.

There was a lot less of Lindsay Duncan than I expected. Billy Howle and Bessie Carter were very good, and the children too.

Despite all of that, I rather enjoyed the stately pace and it felt “real” in exploring family relationships without massive drama. Interesting contrast to the big dramas next door in the Dorfman.

7/10.

PS I did think this family tree video was useful beforehand (only very slight spoilers)

<SPOILER AHOY!!>

That family tree! Great but I'm already confused.
Seriously - is it too complicated to follow who is whom?

<SPOLIER AHOY!!>

Dodie Smith's middle-class, family drama of late inter-war years should have been just my sort of thing but left me disappointed. I don't think Smith's material is at fault, but rather Emily Burns, so good directing Jack Absolute, seems out of her depth at the helm here.

The normally reliable Lindsay Duncan never fully inhabits the character of the matriarch convincingly, and this feels like a failure of direction rather than actor talent. Stand-outs are Kate Fahy as Aunt Belle, Malcolm Sinclair as the father Charles, and Bethan Cullinane as Cynthia. Some of the minor adult roles are embarrasingly am-dram. I won't comment on the child actors.

Two scenes stand out, both one-on-one discussions in the second half: the first a scene between Belle and Charles, and the second between Cynthia and her mother. These are gripping melodrama, the second bringing a tear. If only I were as invested in the characters before that point.

The casting choices here lead to the credibility-defying situation where we're meant to believe that a daughter is terrified her mother will disapprove of while the same mother has apparently no prejudices with regards to two other of her offspring marrying inter-racially. The modern bent for whitewashing historical attitudes to race is getting to be a little offensive now.

Another aspect detracting from authenticity is the accents, all English posh 2024. Don't they teach past accents anymore? Archive material reveals how differently 1930s middle-class southerners sounded. (In fact, hearing some 1970s and 1980s vox pop clips on Radio 2 recently surprised me at how posh and clipped your man on the Clapham omnibus was even then.)

I think I need to seek out the 1943 movie version of Dear Octopus to see how it should really be done. Gutted to learn it's not even on DVD and that I missed a recent BFI screening.

Three stars.

Seen last Saturday
Act 1: 14:05-14:49
Act 2: 14:51-15:32
Act 3: 15:55-16:53
(Note: 8 minutes longer than advertised for those booking trains home)

Sorry, not for me.

Left at the interval last night as I found the whole thing rather boring.

There were a number of sleepers around me too which suggests that I wasn't the only one!

Yes, I thought this was charming. While for me the play itself is a 3* affair, the wonderful cast, music and production pushed it above. A real pleasure. I can understand why parts of it might be considered dull - and heard a rather strong snore from behind - but it all worked for me. Lindsay Duncan was super with droll delivery but I also really enjoyed Kate Fahy as Belle. But all were on form.