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Rebecca Stephens went to see Arthur and George at Nottingham Playhouse

 

‘Arthur and George’ tells the story of how famous literary figure and mystery writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was enlisted to help prove the innocence of wrongly convicted lawyer, George Edalji. Adapted for the stage by David Edgar from the novel by Julian Barnes, the material is like a gothic fictionalisation of a real life ‘Murder, She Wrote’.

 

The play opens with a classically gothic Victorian image of a shimmering woman in silhouette, advancing through a misty haze like a ghost. Indeed the theme of spiritualism, a popular idea throughout Europe in the 1800s, and particularly Arthur Conan Doyle’s fascination with it, is referenced multiple times during the play as a means to explaining his agreeing to take on George’s case.

 

In fact, the shimmering woman is not a ghost; she is Jean Leckie, Doyle’s mistress. However, she and George’s sister, Maud do often appear as ghostlike figures. They traverse the stage throughout the play, outside of the action taking place, narrating and interpreting events for our benefit.

 

Navigating Ruari Murchison’s set is no mean feat as, littered with period props and furniture, it regularly rotates. The staging is complex, dynamic and exciting, yet also elegant. All of the actors in turn, enter through a glittering revolving door to the rear left of the set, and proceed drift from one side of the stage to the other throughout the play, stepping on and off of the moving carousel without the slightest hint of a wobble. It adds a sense of kinetic energy to the atmosphere and a real sense of pace to the action, whist the entrance and exits through the revolving door enhance the spiritual tone to the drama, as if the characters have been recalled from another world. There is no black out whilst another scene is set, the soft ‘gas lit’ lighting effect merely illuminates different sections of the stage at different times as the action seamlessly continues. The lead character of Doyle is barely off stage for even a moment.

 

The staging and lighting combine to create quite a cinematic feel to the play. The dialogue is rapid, pulpy and noir like, which could arguably be better suited to television or film. Audience members often struggled to keep up with the fast paced exchanges on stage. The short lines and the rapidity with which they were delivered did not always seem conducive to the actors projecting their voices so all could hear. Chris Nayak’s solution to this problem, as George seemed to be to shout all of his lines in the same angry, confused tone, no matter what the content. He conveyed neither the characteristics of ‘shy and quiet’ as Maud describes her brother to be, nor any hint of the harrowed trauma we might expect of one who has been wrongly accused of a grisly crime and subsequently spent 4 years in a Victorian jail.

 

Happily, other performances are not so frustrating. Adrian Lukis as Doyle is engaging, compelling and amusing. He is infinitely watchable in the role and captures the imagination from start to finish. In particular, scenes between he and his long suffering, loyal secretary ‘Woody’, played by William Beck are amongst the most enjoyable in the play. Echoes of Holmes and Watson are played on with mischievous glee. One may question whether, overall there are times in the play when the cast go for laughs when they perhaps should play it straight. That is rarely the case where these two are concerned. Also worthy of note are Simon Coates’ turns as both a menacing local police officer and of the colonially minded Chief Constable in charge of George’s case.

 

Overall ‘Arthur and George’ is an enjoyable evening’s entertainment with the stylised charm of an eerie gothic horror, the intrigue of a Sherlock Holmes novel and the morbid fascination and often disappointing resolution of a real life story.

 

Rebecca Stephens

 

 

Arthur and George runs from Thursday 22 April to Saturday 8 May (Box Office: 0115 941 9419 or www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk).