Coram Boy: Review
**Possible mild Spoliers**
Otis takes babies and cash off desperate mothers, promising to deliver them to the Coram Foundling Hospital in London. Instead, he murders them to the helpless horror of his mentally ill son, Mish.
Alex of the great Gloucestershire Ashbrook family loves music above running his fathers estate. He runs away from home, but not before a night of passion with Melissa that leads to a child he doesn’t know. The child is given to Otis but survives thanks to Mish, who takes him to the Coram hospital.
Many years later, the extremely musical orphan boy, Aaron, finds himself apprenticed to a recently returned Alex. Will Alex find out about Aaron, will the Ashbrooks be reconciled and what will happen to all the child thieves?
The play adaptation, from the book by Jamila Gavin, is epic in scope and brilliantly staged. It will appeal to older children as well as to adults. The production is not without flaws and I could nit pick* a few things, but that would be churlish when the whole is such an acessible piece of theatre and great story.
There are magical moments of theatre. Girls are used as actors for boys before their voices break and when Alex comes of age the transition is pure theatre. As is the early use of dolls to evoke babies, then chillingly dug up (and the clever use of the same girl actor to play the younger Alex and Aaron – great job Anna Madeley). There’s singing. There’s atmosphere. There are crowds of people to fill the huge Olivier stage. There are intimate moments.
The story takes us through a whole world (and an evocative, ever surprising set design), and through a whole generation, evoking not only the tragedy and reconciliation of the Ashbrooks but a feeling of the place and time they lived in. The huge disparity in rich and poor and the some of cultural norms.
Coram Boy follows on from the adaptation of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials, and I think in some ways is more successful in evoking its world and its rules.
The audience enjoyed it, with gasps from the crowd and the concentrated shared silences at momentous points that can only be conjured in the theatre.
Well done to the National and to the directing of Melly Still. Also to the adaptation of Helen Edmunsdon (who makes me jealous as I’d love to adapt some thing like Coram Boy – I like children’s books a lot). If you are looking for a family show with older children, I’d recommend it. It you are looking for a good story, epic in scope and staged accordingly, I’d recommend it as well. Full marks.
At the National Theatre until 4 Feb 2006 Box office: 020 7452 3000
*
OK, I could not quite leave off my critic head. Two thoughts (and note I only saw a preview so there things can only get better) the pacing of the first half was fairly even, more variety in its rhythm would have been welcome. The transition from acting to acting-singing occasionally jarred. It was a good choice to use singers rather than actors who thought they could sing, but does this leave the old problem about strength of acting vs. singing.
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3 Responses to “Coram Boy: Review”
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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the play is good but the book is poor. wehad to read it in school. worst book evea, best play eva. how did they do it?
I am writing notes on this play for my A-level drama. I thought that the set design was fantastical and beautiful, it explored quite diverse uses of set and I loved the brechtian approach to it. I haven’t read the book but the play was fabulous. I think i had constant goose-bumps and it cetainly moved me to tears! Good review.
George, can i get hold of your a level notes somehow please!?