Theatre / Reviews
Review: ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’, Bristol Hippodrome – ‘Theatrical magic’
“Where does imagination start and reality begin?”
This is a question posed by Old Mrs Hempstock in The Ocean at the End of the Lane and it really resonated with me throughout this National Theatre production based on the novel by Neil Gaiman.
We suspend disbelief when coming to the theatre and in this story, a 12-year-old boy has to do the same as he gets drawn into a mysterious alternate reality coexisting with our own.
is needed now More than ever
Gaiman takes us from family drama at the dinner table to terrifying monsters, from a pond to an ocean and across time and space.
Time is altered on stage as the boy makes friends with Lettie Hempstock, the youngest of the all-female clan of Hempstock Farm.
We first meet the boy as a man standing beside the pond of the old Sussex farmhouse where he used to play, before he is transported back to his 12th birthday.
Fans of Gaiman will recognise his touches during this story which he wrote for his wife “to tell her where I lived and who I was as a boy”.
And book lovers will recognise themselves in the boy who loses himself in the pages of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Lord of the Rings.
Keir Ogilvy plays the boy who grows in stature as former EastEnders actor Charlie Brooks attempts to cut him down to size.
Charlie Brooks (Ursula) and Keir Ogilvy (Boy) in The Ocean at the End of the Lane – photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
A number of former journalist Gaiman’s books including Coraline and Neverwhere have been developed for cinema and television.
But there is nothing like the power of the theatre to really blend imagination and reality in front of your very eyes and The Ocean at the End of the Lane is an extraordinary fusion of storytelling and theatrical magic.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is at Bristol Hippodrome until Saturday. For more information and tickets, visit www.atgtickets.com/shows/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane/bristol-hippodrome
Main photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
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