If you’d asked me what would be the next popular film turned into a stage play, I’d have gotten a long way down my list before I said The Silence of the Lambs.
Shows what I know, eh, because this psychological horror classic has embarked on a UK tour this week after opening at Leicester Curve, directed by Nikolai Foster.
This adaptation by Gina Gionfriddo is from Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel and not Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film. But the shadow of the film will always loom large, as Dr Hannibal Lecter is interrogated by FBI trainee Clarice Starling for what he knows about a new serial killer on the block.
Stepping into Anthony Hopkins straightjacket and muzzle is no mean feat, but John Partridge excels as Lecter. The right balance of charming and repulsive, he never tips into caricature which could be easy with such an extreme and often parodied character.
Coronation Street’s Mollie Gallagher makes an impressive professional theatre debut as Starling. Her ambitious rookie is the story’s heart, and she gets you invested about whether this young woman-in-a-mans-world falls victim to Lecter’s mind games.
There is strong support from Sam Jackson as the creepy af Buffalo Bill, and Lottie Amor as his victims Fredrica Bimmel and Catherine Martin.
Michael Taylor’s two-levelled set means Bill can encroach on other scenes, a constant unsettling presence as his crimes increasingly consume those who hunt him.
Howard Hudson’s lighting design and Carolyn Downing’s sound design does a great job of maintaining a sense of threat and unease throughout.
The two-hander scenes between Lecter in his glass cage and Clarice are the standout moments, crackling with intensity as their complicated, warped relationship develops. The stillness here makes the bursts of gore and violence pop all the more.
It’s all suitably tense and disturbing (that skin suit, eesh), with a couple of jump scares thrown in for good measure.
I still don’t know if we need a stage version of The Silence of the Lambs. But we’ve got one, and it’s a very entertaining (in it’s own horrific, murder-y way) night at the theatre.
The Silence of The Lambs is at Newcastle Theatre Royal until Saturday (August 22) and is back in the region next year from June 21-26 at Sunderland Empire.