The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

If you weren’t lucky enough to have £40 to spend on a train into London – or £800 000 to spend on a studio cupboard in London – and then a delicious supper at Browns, a ride on the London Eye and stroll on Hampstead Heath, all topped off with a £65 ticket to see the adaptation of Mark Haddon’s book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud  Theatre, then join the club. I cannot be the only one whose open inverted commas graduate job does not involve finding, receiving or excreting gold. Fortunately I could – or more importantly my parents could – afford the tickets at the Hexham Forum cinema to see this much-hyped production streamed for only £11. Long may such a scheme continue for the likes of us in the Frozen North; partly because it makes the theatre a more accessible, less London-centric pastime for us non-gold-defecaters, but also because it means that I can indulge in a totally necessary review.

For those few of you who haven’t had the privilege of reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, first of all, what were you doing with your life in 2003? And secondly, I suggest that you jot down the title before you – right now and post-haste – launch into your nearest bookshop and request The Weird Thing That Happened to a Poodle at Sunset. A brief summary so you’re not left behind clinging to the diving-board, cold shivering and afraid to jump. It’s a book told through the eyes of a boy with behavioural difficulties (think Asperger’s). His name is Christopher John Francis Boone, he is fifteen years old and he wants to be an astronaut. The book is a twist on that old British favourite, the murder mystery and Christopher’s quest to find out who killed his next door neighbour’s dog with a garden fork. During his sleuthing, he discovers things about his family, his neighbours and himself that lead him to the killer. It’s brilliantly written and in 2012 it was expertly transformed for the stage.

This is not going to be a review where I snipe about the selection of rubbish that artistically falls from the sky or moan about the apparent shortage of actors capable of saying their lines and convincingly being someone else (you know, the really unusual, hard-to-come-by bits of acting that only the true pros know about?). First up, a resounding cheer for Marianne Elliott who, unlike Josie Rourke – who I was tragically forced to disparage in bygone days – has managed to pull off a masterpiece of flawless and beautiful directing. This is despite being portrayed as a vapid ninny in the totally pointless and spoiler-riddled preamble that the National Theatre force you to watch if you go to a streamed show. She oh-so-cleverly confided in us that she’d spotted a blindingly underlined metaphor in the production. Good job, Marianne. You get a gold star. Also she fell several further notches in my estimations for saying to the actors, in her best solemn voice, ‘I feel like the energy is very dissipated today’. All aboard the Pretension expressway. *Slap*. However, the spectacle of the show completely redeemed her. For those two million people who read the book, what captured our hearts and minds – what made the book stand out – was Christopher’s narrative voice. His difficulty in understanding others allows him to express himself with total honesty in the face of etiquette, whilst he makes us question the bizarre ways in which we communicate: ‘I think [a metaphor] should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboard.’ (By the way, I can think of no better way of showing you how great the narrative is than by quoting chunks at you – apologies). Dialogue and narrative from the book was lifted straight out and read aloud, as though from Christopher’s diary, by all the members of the cast to recreate his voice. And it worked. Elliott’s direction captured every aspect of Christopher’s relationship and interaction with everything around him, using dance, lights, music, shadows, voice-overs, drawings, mathematics and projections. It was a totally immersive sensory experience and not pretentious or complicated or frankly bamboozling. To be honest, she should win an award simply for how she portrays an escalator. You’ll have to see it, but it’s great. The entire directorial composition was clever and sophisticated and elegant.

It was also really funny. The woman next to me left during the interval saying to her friends – friends who genuinely couldn’t have cared less and barely turned their heads from the screen to acknowledge her departure – that it was too upsetting for her. I’m not sure that I know what she was watching. Alright, bits of it were distressing to a more shrinking-violet nature than my own – Christopher’s screams of confusion and fear in the face of physical abuse, for example, although it’s far less Hollyoaks than that sounds – but by using lines straight from the books Christopher’s deadpan, concrete approach to our confusing world is also humorous: ‘if heaven was on the other side of a black hole, dead people would have to be fired into space on rockets to get there, and they aren’t or people would notice’. Even the moving and magical scene in which Christopher imagines himself achieving his dreams, floating in space as an astronaut, the constellations drawn out in lights on the floor, can’t help but add his pet rat Toby drifting about in zero-gravity in a hamster-ball. Pictures are a big part of the book and Christopher’s explanation of the way he views the world. In the play, the whole floor acted as a gigantic blackboard on which Christopher drew, attempting to understand what facial expressions denote. He tried, for example, to understand how ‘if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean, I want to do sex with you, and it can also mean, I think what you just said was very stupid’. Seeing the world through Christopher’s eyes perfectly captured the book, its quirkiness, its humour and its philosophical nature.

I may never say this again. Every member of the cast was faultless. I repeat – and so am saying it again – every member of the cast was faultless, with many falling into that category where you have to remind yourself, over the interval’s vanilla ice cream, that they probably have lives of their own when the curtain closes. Metaphorically of course, as there was no curtain. Niamh Cusack is superb as Siobhan, Christopher’s charming, patient and caring teacher. If only all teachers were like Siobhan I suspect the world would be a better place and I really hope that Haddon was inspired by one of his teachers to create this character. Of course, I shall struggle to think of Cusack in any other role than as Beatrix Potter, and my parents kindly reminded me that since the days when I curled up thumb in mouth in front of The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, I have aged far worse than Ms Cusack, who clearly has a portrait in the attic. Cheers. And the real Mrs actually Hudson, Una Stubbs, as one of Christopher’s neighbours was as delightful and talented as ever. Star of the show, Luke Treadaway (and here is as good a place as any to spare a thought for his twin brother, who is also an actor) created the role of Albert in the National Theatre’s production of War Horse and was superb, I suspect irreplaceable, as Christopher. Despite obviously not being 15, Treadaway is believably ageless and not like Joey in Friends trying to play 19 by pulling the waistband of his underwear up over his trousers, wearing a ridiculous beanie and saying the word ‘whack’. Nothing I could write would really do him enough credit. He simply was Christopher: uncringeworthy, innocent, honest and loveable. But of course, the stars of the show were the rat playing Toby the rat (who wasn’t credited on the cast-list, so I can only presume his name was Toby or he is currently in touch with his union and a good solicitor) and the gorgeous yellow Labrador puppy whose stage debut was met with universal acclaim.

However, Wednesday’s child is full of woe and no review would be complete without a good dollop of creamy criticism. So it’s been arduous, but I have managed to unearth my bugaboo with this production… and it was the second half. Not the train section. That was epic. The commotion of the overwhelming train station choreographed with intrusive crowds, imposing announcements and the passengers beating the floor and their chests to represent the pounding of the train. That was physical theatre at its best. But after this it was a tad slow. The tortoises skipping by. And all a bit GCSE. Too many Dramatic Moments in Meaningful Voices and not enough plot driving it forward. Too much Significant Silence. And that tiny bit of me – the part that inwardly groans during a film over 100 minutes and hates that it takes 10 series for Ross and Rachel to get together – wanted to shout, “get on with it!” But that’s it. I promise. The nitpick brigade has stood down. Honest.

So finally an echoing round of applause that will outlast many moons, train journeys and brutally stabbed dogs for Mr Mark Haddon, vegetarian, atheist and – most importantly to me – author. This was without a shadow of a doubt my favourite book when I was 14 and I needn’t have been afraid to revisit it. The stage show stands up to the hype and enhanced the book rather than trampling all over it. His next novel, A Spot of Bother, had me distracted and laughing through A level not-so-revision, and his latest, The Red House, kept me page-turning through the night, exhausted and sun-burned, during my holiday round Italy. I only hope he’s writing now.

PS Here is another curious incident concerning a dog. My dog. Fortunately, I am not about to reveal that last night a demented neighbour stabbed my dachshund with a pitchfork, although it could be done with a cake fork. The people in my village are much nicer than that, my dog is adorable and we don’t have a garden fork. However, I have learned that dachshunds were bred to hunt and kill badgers, so for the highly sensitive badger-cuddlers amongst you – well, first of all I salute you because badgers are feisty and pointy, so I myself would never feel comfortable to give one a hug – but I also advise you to look away now. What you are about to see may upset and distress your inner badger-disciple.

I can only apologise