Review: Birdsong at Newcastle Theatre Royal
The stage version of the 1993 bestseller comes to the stage in epic form
Sebastian Faulks’s First World War novel, chronicling a love affair and its ramifications across much of the 20th Century, is preceded by the voice of the man himself.
He reminds us to mute our phones before fading out to allow his tale to unfold across three substantial acts.
Bookers on the theatre website are advised of “haze, smoke, loud noises, nudity, simulated sexual content, strong language, sexual references, themes of war, death and violence and references to abuse”.
Those for whom this was incentive enough to proceed to purchase can’t have felt short-changed. You do get a lot of bangs for your buck.
Anyone who holds the novel dear will have to go along with the creative decisions of adapter Rachel Wagstaff and director Alastair Whatley in fitting a quart into a pint pot.
This they’ve done with partial success in a production in which moments of intimacy can seem stepping stones to the next big set piece.
It’s a young man we first meet, having been propelled by sepia-ed letters from long ago to one of the Commonwealth War Graves sites scattered across northern France.
We then flash back to the country in pre-First World War days and the comfortable domain of factory owner René Azaire, wife Isabelle and daughter (her stepdaughter) Lisette.
There’s also a bumptious local bigwig to whom René must suck up in order to win support for innovations that will cut his volatile workforce.
Into an atmosphere of crackling tension comes young Englishman Stephen Wraysford on some sort of time and motion study.
Played by James Esler in his debut stage role, it is Stephen’s affair with the unhappy Isabelle (Charlie Russell) that grabs our attention.
Accounting for much of that content warning, their passion is laid bare on stage but it’s no sooner consummated than consumed by the war and actual explosions of the second act.
As French drawing room and sometime factory morphs almost convincingly into staging post near the Somme, Stephen is now a brittle Army officer tasked with sending men ‘over the top’.
Attention in Birdsong, however, is more on the under than the over. Enter Jack Firebrace and his fellow sappers whose job is to tunnel beneath enemy lines.
Max Bowden delivers a touching performance as the family man whose toughness masks inner torment and whose bond with Wraysford ultimately leads both into a tight spot.
As Brennan, on-stage musical director James Findlay evokes the softer sounds of the trenches and there are other notable performances from the likes of Tama Phethean as Jack’s best pal and Natalie Radmall-Quirke as Isabelle’s sister.
But it’s largely an ensemble piece and the stories you want more of are subsumed in the relentless roll of history.
It is a tad long and I wouldn’t say that the whole exceeds the sum of its parts, but it’s watchable and never dull.
Birdsong runs until Saturday, January 25. Tickets from the Theatre Royal website.