The Exorcist - Birmingham Rep / Phoenix / Tour

Telegraph and Independent have given it 4 stars.

Just for that, we should all take a moment to enjoy a 1970s picture of Suzi Q.

Oh dear several of us were walking out at curtain call after a West End preview last week. How did Jenny Seagrove keep from corpsing? 

Interesting to note that an interval has now been added. Updated running time online of 2h10.

Possibly - traditionally producers have had to pay a "no interval fee" to the theatre owner, to make up for the lost revenue. Knowing Bill Kenwright, it wouldn't surprise me if he opted to put the interval in to avoid paying this.

Could equally be due to disturbance from people re-entering the auditorium after going to the toilet, or perhaps not even being re-admitted full stop.

Basically, I don't know

Glad I saw it without the interval. Kept the tension level up. Surprised they've put one in again as the critics took issue with the interval in the Birmingham run.

Just had a look at ticket sales for tomorrow night - Upper Circle 23 sold, Dress Circle 49 sold. I know it's only a Monday (didn't look at other days), and the stalls looks under half sold (although I'm guessing some are with agencies?), but surely the running costs aren't low enough for this to chug through till March at this rate.

There were 500 in on Saturday night i.e. less than 50% of the house ... and on a Saturday evening !

Quiz seems a longshot commercially for a house this size -- the Phoenix is much bigger, for instance, than the Duke of York's, where Ink is running, and that one has some names in the cast !

I actually think younger audiences looking for a night out at the theatre as a festive treat, and alternative Christmas parties could go for this. The night I went, it was the youngest audience I've seen for a long time.

This is a very technically accomplished, atmospheric production with some nice performances and in my view is superior to the overrated Woman in Black. If that can do 28 years in town, there would be no justice if The Exorcist couldn't do 4 months.

- [ ] Rather mixed feelings about this show! Overall a lot more positive than negative. Being a fan of the source material is always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the opportunity to see the adaptation at all is a huge bonus - on the other, as always, it leaves the piece wide open to direct comparisons with the original (movie). In the numerous screen to stage adaptions I’ve seen over the years, often the largest obstacle the creators have to overcome is the audience’s perception and memories of the original. Be it a star cast member (Dick Van Dyke/Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins”) or an extremely challenging-to-adapt iconic scene/moment (a flying car, a levitating 12 year old), the line between replica, homage and lip-service is a minute one.

“The Exorcist” is a surprisingly good fit for the stage as a piece of melodrama. The play zipped along nicely for me. The characters, although somewhat stock (the flamboyant gay British movie director, the reluctant priest, the doting mother) are fairly well established and their development sat fine with me. The flow of the story, the dialog and general quality of the writing was certainly strong enough to do the work justice. For example, a decent enough job was done of establishing Regan as a normal 12 year old girl, before her (slightly naive, admittedly) domination by malevolent Gandalf.

The casting is solid if unremarkable. I don’t have names handy as I’m sending this on a train home without a programme, but Regan did excellently as an adult actress playing a pre-teen girl. I rather liked Peter Bowles’ entrance! I found his performance intentionally downplayed, carefully sidestepping potential banana skins of camp ridiculousness. The outcome makes his elderly priest appear somewhat one-note, but it works. Adam Garcia was a tasty vanilla Damien. Unremarkable but fully palatable. I had a bit of a problem with Jenny Seagrove as Chris. Her acting was somewhat erratic; veering from hysterical squealing to almost unintelligible cod-American grumbling. She also looked more like Regan’s kindly Gran or a favourite Aunt than a supposed rom-com movie star.

The show is a faithful enough retelling of the movie. But those iconic moments I mentioned above? Extremely disappointing. And “The Exorcist” is a show that is really being sold on familiarity alone.

Stuff is outright missing; the spider-walking, the levitation - some is present but underwhelming to the point of derision. The vomiting is rubbish. The bed crucifix imagery is poorly realised. The production starts with a jump scare and that is literally it for the frights. If anything, the show underused the expected tropes of this kind of thing.

And here’s my biggest gripe; the whole thing feels somewhat like an opportunity missed. The effects range from utterly cack (a flower flops over, ooooooohhhh!) to ropey (Regan cutting into an obviously fake arm) to reasonably well done (parts of the exorcism in the finale). But at no point was I wowed by the stagecraft or spectacle. I wouldn’t say it felt “cheap”, but certainly lacking in ambition. Imagine what Cameron Mackintosh’s money and vision could’ve done with it, with top creative minds (Paul Kieve, Penn and Teller or Derren Brown) creating the illusions. It could have been so much more.

Not laughably bad, not breathtakingly good - just a fairly solid adaptation which won’t last until March I suspect.

Oh, I didn’t pay for my ticket but I wouldn’t have minded if I had paid about £30. Stalls less than half full.