London Tide @ Lyttelton Theatre…

It was a 42 minute dash from the moment my much-delayed KLM flight touched down at London City Airport to me sitting next to Stuart, G&T in hand, at the Lyttelton Theatre to watch Ben Power’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, now a musical and renamed London Tide, aptly situated on London’s glitzy South Bank. 

So, was it worth the sprint? Ish. But only ish. 

National Theatre yup

Great cast yup

Dickens yup

Complex plotting yup

Boarish men yup

Self-sacrificing women yup

The odd murder yup

Heaps of melodrama yup

Music by PJ Harvey yup

Clever set design and staging yup

But… but…. The songs were dirge. The singing iffy. The production over-long and boring. A few fell asleep. 😴 

At three hours in, one of leads stands at the waters’ edge for what seems like an age contemplating suicide. 

I muttered, “jump” 

⭐️⭐️⭐️