BLEAK HOUSE | STAGE REVIEW
The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff, Fri 23 Oct
I’ve read Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. I say read – I slowly trudged my way through its 360,000 pages (and possibly gave up before the very end) just so I could write a mediocre essay on it. So I wasn’t going into this performance with the highest expectations of plot and excitement levels, but my opinions have completely changed.
Critically-acclaimed theatre group, The Pantaloons (great name, 10/10), began life ten years ago as an open-air theatre company. Their combination of theatre traditions including pantomiming, stand-up comedy, and improvisation has developed a way of physical-storytelling that is wonderfully playful and attention-grabbing.
For their performance of Bleak House, five actor/musicians portray 50 characters woven throughout several plot lines of love, mystery, tragedy and spontaneous combustion. All in just over two hours.
With bare minimum staging – including an impressive wig selection, unbecoming shawls, a keyboard, a guitar, a banjo, and a wheelchair – they recreate Dickensian London to impressive effect.
We followed young Esther Summerson, taken in by an unknown guardian to join two wards of an ongoing court case; along with Mr Tulkinghorn, a shrewd lawyer; Lady Dedlock, a high society beauty with a dark past; and countless other threads of storytelling which all swirl around each other until they twist together into one final revelation.
Cardiff’s Gate Theatre, with features remaining from its past life as a church, was the ideal setting for this fog-filled show of intrigue and mystery. For the performance, the audience sat in the staging area, putting us in the middle of the action and allowing for improvised audience-participation sections. Praise goes to the cast who held their nerve when, on quizzing audience members on their occupations, they happened across both a casting director and the director of the venue.
The transformation from text to stage was fantastic – though the plot was, at times, a little difficult to follow for those who hadn’t read the book. What was most impressive was the cast’s talent for comedy. Bleak House is indeed a darkly comic text but the audience here was roaring with laugher throughout.
To fit a Dickens novel into two hours is a triumph in itself, but The Pantaloons made it enjoyable, exciting and incredibly funny. They are truly wonderful.
words LAUREN SOURBUTTS
You can catch The Pantaloons’ Bleak House at The Blake Theatre, Monmouth, Fri 7 Nov. Tickets:13-£16. Info: 01600 719 401 / www.theblaketheatre.org