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A Tale of Two Cities
Wolverhampton Grand
**** FORGET any memories of force fed Dickens
badly taught from dog eared tomes at school, this is a rip roaring
adventure tale of revolution, romance and redemption. Dickens only wrote two historical novels, this
and the much earlier Barnaby Rudge, and this tale set in Paris and
London around the outbreak of the French Revolution where the excesses
and brutality of the worst of the aristocracy were matched and even
exceeded by the mobs of the citizen’s republic. It was a novel with fewer sub plots and eccentric
characters than most of Dickens’ tales and despite being written in 1859
about events in the 1770s it has a very contemporary feel with an
unknown narrator and characters we find out about from what they say and
do rather than elaborate descriptions. Mike Poulton has done a fine job of adapting the
novel for the stage, keeping the essence of Dicken’s work without
becoming side tracked by sub-plots and, in the hands of director James
Dacre, this produces a quick paced and very slick production – something
we have come to expect from the Touring Consortium Theatre Company. The story is simple: Dr Manette played by Patrick
Romer, upset an aristocrat so was jailed in Paris for 18 years without
charge and has just been released so comes to London to stay with Lucie,
played by Shanaya Rafaat, the daughter he has never seen. He is also
helped by Charles Darnay. Darney, played by Jacob Ifan, is heir to the
Marquis St. Evrémonde, played by Christopher Hunter among other roles.
The Marquis is a bullying, arrogant, cruel etc. aristocrat of the type
that engendered a need for revolution. Darney hates the aristocratic
system and has moved to London to make his own way in the world. Except he is charged with treason be aiding the
French, only being acquitted because of his uncanny likeness to a
drunken, degenerate lawyer, Sydney Carlton, a likeness which makes any
identification evidence unsafe. Carl
When Darnay returns to Paris to help a friend he
ends up in court again and is sentenced to death for the sins of his
father and uncle – it was that sort of time. And death means the
guillotine the next day which gives us a real Saturday morning cinema
cliffhanger. Will Darnay be saved to rejoin his wife now heavy
with child? Can Sydney save him? Will anyone live happily ever after?
Find out at the Grand. Poulton has kept in the best known speeches from
the well quoted opening lines from the narrator to the noblest lines of
them all it the end and inbetween Dacre has created a real adventure
story helped along by a fine cast and locally recruited ensemble. The cast took on multiple roles but notable were
Michael Garner as the banker Lorry, Noa Bodner as the revenge driven
Madame Defarge, Jonathan Dryden Taylor as bodyguard Jerry and Sue
Wallace as Lucie’s maid Miss Pross. Mike Britton’s set design is a delight providing
courts, taverns, streets, jails, fine houses and banks, as well as
Madame Guillotine all appearing in seconds as walls roll or fly in or
out or are carried in and out in stylised fashion by the cast with ne’er
a break in the action Paul Keogan’s lighting also helps set scenes and
create atmosphere while Ruth Hall’s costumes just shout authenticity. It is long show, at two and a half hours, but you
will never notice as it fairly flies along. The result is a most
enjoyable production which brings Dicken’s classic to glorious life.
Dickens' considered A Tale of Two Cities his finest book an it is easy
to see why. To 22-10-16 Roger Clarke 19-10-16
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ton,
beautifully played by Joseph Timms, is the unlikely hero. When Darnay
falls for Lucie, so does Carlton, but he knows he is at best a reprobate
and will always let her down, always break her heart. There is not much
to like about the man yet somehow he is where our sympathies lie.