The Night Watch at Royal Exchange - Review

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Thu 19 May 2016 - Sat 18 Jun 2016

To call The Night Watch a wartime drama would be a slight misnomer, especially in its first half. Before the interval, this adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel by Hattie Naylor, focuses on the post-war struggles and relationships of its characters in the context of society's attitude to homosexuality and conscientious objection. They are searching in the rubble, to find out if their lives will return to what they were before the outbreak of conflict or if they are forever altered. "I miss the war, how do we find purpose?" former ambulance driver, Kay (Jodie McNee), asks.



The first half has an episodic structure, which is nonetheless effective. We, the audience, are like investigators, piecing together clues as to what has gone before and what emotional baggage the characters carry and share.

There is a nice balance of moods, ranging from the delicacy of the interaction between former cellmates Robert (Ben Addis) and Duncan (Joe Jameson), to the light-touch sinister performance by Lucy Briggs-Owen as Mrs Leonard, a Christian Science doctor, to the comedic fluster of office manager, Mr Wilson (Christopher Ettridge).



The outer circle of the set, designed by Georgia Lowe, revolves, which both addresses the sight lines issue of a theatre-in-the-round, like the Royal Exchange, and also acts as a visual metaphor for the way that the characters' are in flux.

The second half of the production is more immediately dramatic in that we are in wartime and the Blitz itself, with all its flashing lights and blackouts. The ever-present danger either leads lovers to be more adventurous or makes other characters anxious about the fate of loved ones.

There is one stand out scene where Kay delivers an intense monologue during an air raid. However, overall, I felt that the second half was less successful in making the jump from page to stage. I was wishing I had read the novel in advance, so that I was more clued-up on how everything fitted together.

Having said that, even if all this production, directed by Rebecca Gatward, were to achieve, was to take us back to the novel, then that would be no bad thing in itself.



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!date 19/05/2016 -- 18/06/2016
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