Rose theatre, Kingston Rona Munro’s adaptation of the Louis de Bernières classic cuts back the love story to drum home the bloody trauma of conflict Louis de Bernières’s Greek island epic about love across the barricades was such a phenomenon in 1994 that the book’s blue-and-white cover is still instantly recognisable to many. Twenty-five years on, can this story of second world war island occupation still enchant or does it feel stuck in 90s aspic? Director Melly Still manages to both stay faithful to the original and inject it with freshness, while Rona Munro’s adaptation distils key themes, especially the question of whether the “enemy-occupier” in a war is ever free to show love or compassion to the occupied. But the story now trades on spectacle, song, movement and music. This is not far from being Captain Corelli’s Mandolin: The Musical. Much of the emotional drama comes from these aspects and while this means that the weighty, winding narrative of the book is simplified, it feels more streamlined, albeit occasionally elliptical. Continue reading...
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