Small Island - National Theatre

Anyone going to the first preview tonight? Interested to hear thoughts...

It's long.

3.5hrs last night. Out just after 11pm.

And maybe it should have stayed a BBC adaptation. I had a lovely time, mainly due to the performances but at over 3 hours, a poor use of the Olivier as a set (though 3 stars alone for revolve use) but this felt more like Norris showing someone somewhere that he is a bit of sick of theatre and would like to do more screen work.
I think in light of a white creative cast the relentless racial insults (Yes, Britain wasn't friendly. What is literally new) is hard work For the audience. This has been advertised and aimed at Afro-Caribbean audiences but there is clear issues about stories being for audiences or about the audience and this treaded the fine line.

Saw this tonight and I think this just sums it up. I think it’s an astonishing piece of theatre and might just be my best new play I’ve seen this year, easily the best new play I’ve seen since Sweat. I don’t know if it struck such a cord with me because my grandparents were of that Windrush generation, but either way I would highly recommend.

This is a fantastically moving (and amusing) five star drama, with three beautifully defined and relatable protagonists. In my opinion, it is the best thing Rufus Norris has directed at the National, both before and after his tenure as AD, and shows what he can do with good material. (The close of the first half is breathtaking, for example).

This is the most marvelous tribute to Andrea Levy, who passed away this year, and I feel the vast majority who see this will feel it is one of the highlights of their year. It is certainly one of mine.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Adaptor, Helen Edmundson makes the inspired choice of centering the drama on the two female protagonists, who she gives soliloquies, a choice that finds and exploits the symmetry in the novel between the experiences of those two female protagonists, as well as allowing us a more humorous and intimate connection to those characters than we ever got in the tv adaptation of the source material a decade ago. In Leah Harvey and Aisling Loftus, Norris finds two enormously engaging and delightful performances to give life to these vibrant and witty and honest women; Harvey evincing the charismatic dignity she showed as The Globe's Emilia, as Hortense, but also an endearing reticence, and Loftus every bit her match as the quirky, funny, acts-before-she-thinks Queenie.

For me, though, remarkably, it is Gershwyn Eustache Jnr as Gilbert who is the biggest revelation and the icing on this show's cake. Always compelling in dramatic roles I've seen, over the years, here Eustache Jnr is a shining star, prideful yet compassionate, larger-than-life yet acutely-aware, oozing charisma, tender yet funny as they come.

These three perfectly realised characters breathe life into Levy's dramatic, moving, human, important story to such a degree that this for me is play of the year.

5 stars.

Saw this last night: simply glorious and ASTOUNDINGLY well directed by Norris and beautifully served by his design team -- the sound work especially is of the highest level. The standing ovation at the end was long and intense and the audience wanted the cast to return for a third bow, which, alas, the company didn't do. Brilliant acting all round (David Fielder breaks your heart) and agree that Gershwyn Eustache Jnr is wonderful --and must have the best name ever ! (Aisling Loftus a knockout as well.)

Saw this last night - a really captivating and fascinating story. We did have a show stop early on in Act 1 - the trap door on the right hand side of the revolve refused to spring up.
This was during the scene in the farm with the large fake pig - so the actors left the stage leaving the carcass hanging during the small interlude!

Rest of the show the trap was unused so people just walked on or off stage to that spot (made a much more hilarious death for one character!).

I found this initially slightly slow but then become really gripped by the tales of these characters from such vastly different cultures. Did have a slight GCSE crowd behind me who treated the show like a soap opera - gasping, screaming and commenting on characters. Whilst I appreciated their engagement it was slightly distracting.

Great night at the theatre though - time whizzed by. Also amazing to see such a diverse audience too!

Saw this last night and another positive vote for me. I felt safe in the hands of the creative team here (on and off stage), very quickly I settled in and thought "these people know what they're doing" and could just enjoy the great story telling and acting. Such a contrast to recent NT productions where I have frequently been taken out of my comfort zone, not because I was being tested but because I thought that these people were self-consciously "doing theatre". So it is long but doesn't feel like it, it's warm without being sickly, it's sharp without being spiky, it was a very good night at the theatre. Rufus Norris sitting a few seats along from us (mid stalls) taking notes.

Liked it, not as in love as many other reviewers, but this is decent, as seen last night for the middle of the Circle.

It is long and starts very slow. Think the first half hour could easily be trimmed.

I'm not familiar with the source material, so I found the time jumps a bit confusing, particularly one which I presume was meant to be set a few years after the end, but which appeared during act one. I could hear all sorts of similar confusion from other people leaving, things like:


I assumed it was written to allow for a sequel, as there were so many plot lines that weren't closed off.

There is a certain charm to this and an emotional edge (or perhaps, based on the continual laughter from a lady a few seats away from me, it's just a comedy about those funny people).

It was full at the start. A few people did leave at the interval, but I'm glad I stayed to the end, even though it was getting late. Can't imagine it's one I'd ever want to see again, but I'm tempted now to read the novel to get the full story.

Having now read the novel, seen the tv adaptation and the play I can safely say that, in my view, the novel is the best version of this. Which is not surprising given this is how it was originally written by Andrea Levy.

Notwithstanding, this is a fine effort which does well to compensate for the difficulties in time and space involved in bringing a novel with such a wide-ranging narrative to the stage. The Olivier is perhaps not the best stage for this because it rather dwarfs the intimate moments, and there are many. On the other hand the huge cast of nearly forty actors would simply not fit into many other stages. Although this may be an adaptation it makes for epic theatre and the size of the stage serves to emphasise this.

The moral of this adaptation is that a good story will always succeed, whatever format you might use. The cast is very good here and there are plenty of witty lines, not least for Gershwyn Eustace Jr who relishes in them in his role of the angry but relentlessly cheerful Gilbert. At the end of the day the humour masks a more depressing message than might be apparent on the surface, somewhat akin to the ending of Forster's "A Passage to India", but then you remember this is history and the (fictional) events depicted, whilst painting an accurate picture of the ignorance and racism which the Windrush generation met, are in the past. And then you look around at a very mixed audience laughing together and audibly deploring the disgusting racist insults (totally necessary in the play) and you know that progress has been made.

Well, to use tmesis (sorry!) this is sen-bloody-sational.

I knew nothing of the novel (or the BBC series) but now I can't wait to read it. The adaptation is long at 3hrs 10 and with a first act of 1hr 40 but the time just flies by. You get completely drawn into the storytelling and the adaptation is very clear - I didn't feel the first act dragged at all.

At its heart are four cracking performances: Andrew Rothnay as Bernard, who is initially hilarious in his buttoned-up-ness but then chilling in his intolerance; Aisling Loftus is fantastic in her solid practicality, with a more sympathetic attitude to the 'coloureds' as she calls them; Leah Harvey has the largest part as the haughty Hortense; with Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, I think I'm a little in love, so appealingly did he play the character's optimistic stoicism in the face of hostility.

The production is wonderfully realised. The 'curse of the Olivier' seems finally to be lifted with this. The set is relatively simple but it moves from one disparate location to another with fantastically fluid and elegant transitions, underpinned with very subtle use of music.

This is definitely the best production from Norris I have seen - he's had a really duff run and you have to go back to London Road in 2011 for his last decent effort - and shows what a wonderful director he is with the right material.

This tops everything else I've seen this year.