This portmanteau of adaptations of three stories by Neil Gaiman is a mixed bag. The writing is superb – a series of timeless fables and morality tales in Gaiman’s distinctive dark whimsy – and the performances are solid. However, each story suffers from a similar problem, a sense of over-anticipation.
The first tale, The White Road, is the most satisfying. However, the text is dense and at times rushed, so the thrust of the narrative is lost under an indulgence in line-by-line imagery. In particular the fiancée’s monologue is made interminable by starting the speech in the emotional state she’s intending to end it in. From the first, teary word we know something’s wrong, and when we get the supposed revelation of horror, we’ve been waiting for it for five minutes.
You can anticipate the problem with the second tale, The End Of The World By Dawnie Morningside Aged 11 1/2, from its title. Beyond the annoying adult-as-child acting, there’s a profoundly moving piece of writing. A less affected performance would make this superb, although it was still restrained compared to the third story.
We Can Get Them For You Wholesale was presented as a dark clown story. Yet the first line states that ‘Peter Pinter is a very moderate man’. Erm, not in this case. Here, he’s a retarded mutant who starts off in a state of total agitation and so, again, has nowhere to go. Instead of character progression we’re treated to tedious slapstick from an unsympathetic character. The script and the buffoonery gain easy laughs, but at the expense of emotional impact.
These are problems with direction rather than performance, and perhaps reflect the difficulty of adapting fantasy for the stage. Fans of Gaiman will appreciate the effort made here, but newcomers may wonder what the fuss was about.
3/5
Hugh Jones
