Some novels make good plays and some do not. In the latter category I would put The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Brideshead Revisited. However, the adapter of that book has made a much more thrilling theatrical experience from Alice Sebold's novel. She also adapted Brighton Rock which was equally successful.
So I found that the play was far better than the movie. I liked the way the dead Susie mingles with the living, although they cannot see her. Those passages from the book where she fails to tell them what to find work much better as a result. Susie herself is played with gusto by the excellent Charlotte Beaumont. This is a very physical and engaging performance.
The set also works well with that giant mirror at the back replicating Susie's view from heaven. Director Melly Still and designer Ana Ines Jabares-Pita are responsible for the different effects it made. Sometimes you didn't know whether to watch the action on stage or in the mirror. I guess this unsettling feeling was what they wanted.
The rest of the cast is fine. I particularly liked Leigh Lothian as Ruth and Buckley, and Nicholas Khan was just right as the creepy Harvey. The 70's soundtrack was fun with clips from Top of the World, You Make Me Feel Brand New, Everybody Wants to Rule the World and Starman. For such a tragic story, the play mirrors the book with it's premise that heaven is not such a bad place to end up.
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