The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,’ takes its inspiration from a quote featured in a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle and is based on a book by Mark Haddon.  It is itself a mystery of sorts, in that the protagonist of the play goes on an investigation himself but learns more about himself and his own family in the process.  The story starts with a murder and a corpse on stage.  The victim is Wellington the dog owned by Christopher’s neighbour, Mrs Sheers (Poppy) and sticking out of the dog’s body is a garden fork - the murder weapon.  

The show is cleverly executed with live action narrated, in first person, by Christopher himself and interactions from the other characters involved in the story.  There is also a narrator Siobhan (Ettie) who acts as a calming influence on Christopher reminding him, in a gentle voice, strategies he can use to deal with various traumatic situations.  She exists in the present and the future, as she is also reading Christopher’s completed book of the events. 

We meet Christopher (Tamzyn) a fifteen-year-old boy, who has a talent for patterns and number with an enthusiastic interest in space. He is also pathologically honest and has a unique view of the world around him feeling himself to be an outsider.  Dressed in a bright red hoodie (his favourite colour), Christopher has extreme social issues and does not like being touched, so when a policeman at the murder scene goes to touch him, Christopher reacts violently resulting in his arrest. We realise Christopher has also a very literal sense of his surroundings when asked to give the contents of his pockets he lists every single item. He also screams loudly when asked to surrender his watch.  

Christopher lives with his father Ed (a powerful observation of a father in crisis from Ruby C) as he has been told his mother Judy, has died two years previously of a heart attack.  Christopher has a strained relationship with his father, and this comes to the fore when Chrstopher announces he has decided to solve Wellington’s murder.  Christopher spends his days tending to his pet rat Toby and playing games of Tetris in his bedroom. He attends a school for children with additional needs and by his conversation, we can tell he is incredibly intelligent as he is intending to take his ‘A’ level mathematics examination and is expecting to get an ‘A’ star. 

Ignoring his father, Christopher proceeds to question everyone about the murder including random people on the street.  He also visits Wellington’s owner, Mrs Sheers who is less than welcoming to Christopher interference in fact she gets quite angry with him.  He meets another neighbour, Mrs Alexander (a lovely cameo performance from Ruby B) an elderly lady who invites him in for juice and Battenberg cake.  In a touching exchange Christopher tells her he only eats the pink squares as he doesn’t eat yellow food. He also refuses to go inside her house saying she is a stranger again another insight into his neurodivergence.  

Christopher starts to write down his thoughts about his investigation, but when he tries to talk to his dad about his intentions to talk to Mrs Shears about her husband, he is surprised when he shouts angrily at him calling Mrs Shears’ husband an ‘evil man.’  All the time black and white animations are being projected onto the back wall one of these is a window and when Ed shouts, this shakes violently to reflect the feeling of fear in Christopher.  Christopher is left feeling confused why doesn’t his dad like Mr Sheers? 

 Full of random facts Christopher chats directly to the audience about wanting to be an astronaut as he ‘likes small places’ and ‘being on his own’ but would happily take Toby into space.  Christopher seems to have a better relationship with his pet rat as he isn’t judgemental nor makes any demands on him.  

Christopher’s investigations continue with Mrs Alexander providing a bomb shell piece of information – his mum and Mr Shears were having an affair to which Christopher innocently ask, were they ‘doing sex.’  Back home, Christopher recounts a memory of his mother at the seaside filled with detail and the exact words and comments he remembers.  There is no emotional connection with this memory, it is merely a recollection of an event and a person.  In the most shocking part of the play, Ed finds his son’s book and takes it off him, when Christopher hits his father, Ed slaps him back knocking him to the floor resulting in Christopher sitting hugging his knees obviously traumatised.  

Christopher goes on a methodical hunt for his missing book finally searching his father’s bedroom, where he discovers a box of envelopes all addressed to him, but post mark dated after his mother had died.  There are forty-three letters in total telling Christopher that she has never stopped thinking about him.  We can even read the letter ourselves as it is projected on the back of the stage. She has left them both for Roger Sheers and tells him he is better off with his father.  Ed finds Christopher reading the letters and ruefully confesses to lying about his mother’s death but, more chillingly that in a fit of rage, he had murdered Wellington. 

Suddenly, Christopher feels unsafe with his father feeling he could be murdered himself and he makes plans to go to London to find his mother. 

I was very impressed with the overall standard of acting from every one of the young talented cast members on stage, especially how they interacted with Tamzyn sometimes literally orbiting around her as she delivered her copious number of lines.  The delivery was pacy and created a sense of urgency which reflected the inner turmoil of Christopher himself, and each cast member got to play either one or two characters helping to tell the story.  I liked the scene featuring a comedy cameo from Kayden as a poor police officer stranded on the train.  The scene in the London underground, with a combination of projections and incessant chanting from different characters, was also very powerful giving an insight into the sensory overload experienced by Christopher.  

The set was very bare relying on five large, black boxes which served as storage for props and for giving extra height.  My favourite part was using the boxes to assemble a train where the cast sat swaying in time to the train’s movement.  The projections were a useful backdrop guiding the story along and often showed Christopher’s own state of mind and world view.  Costumes were simple with grey hoodies for the ‘Voices’ and uniforms for the police officers.  Mrs Alexander wore a flowery dress, grey wig and glasses to denote her age and Mrs Sheers wore a dressing gown.  Christopher himself always wore a distinctive red hoodie in his favourite colour which made him stand out from the cast. 

Some very powerful moments to mention, including where Christopher finally makes it to London and meets his mother.  There is no emotional connection from Christopher when Judy (Elea) tries to hug her son reminding her of the earlier incident where she broke her toe following one of Christopher’s melt downs. It also gives us further insight into the logical world he inhabits. His extreme reaction when Judy tells him that she has postponed his ‘A’ level maths exam was also very visceral.  Also, the moment where Roger Sheers (Ben Turner) who, while trying unsuccessfully to bond with him, violently attacks Christopher after getting drunk.  

Well done to Tamzyn, who created a very believable portrayal of a neurodivergent teenage boy giving us a window into his often terrifying world.  I really felt her discomfort and feeling of being swamped and overwhelmed by the barrage of attacks on her person from other characters and the unfamiliar surroundings.  The moment she lost poor Toby on the underground was a genuinely heart-stopping moment with her scolding him like an angry parent telling off a toddler.  I also liked her self-deprecating response when she achieved her expected ‘A’ star.  Tamzyn did not once let the pace drop keeping her facial expressions fixed to match how Christopher would respond to a situation.  There were some very mature themes explored, and these were handled very tactfully.  I was also impressed how she could switch from ear-piercing, high-pitched screaming to normality again - very well done!  I loved the part when she came on back on stage to detail exactly how she answered that tricky Pythagoras question!

Ettie as Siobhan was a confident character who helped keep the action going by having some conversations with Christopher particularly giving him tactics on how to cope such as the ‘red line’ in the underground and his mantra about the trains. 

A play like this relies on the input of every single cast member playing their part and I am delighted to say that each one of you played your parts perfectly.  Well done to the ‘Voices’ who apart from other things, created an overwhelming wall of sound in the underground, overlapping each other creating chaos swirling around poor Christopher as he was bombarded by adverts and special offers. The scene with Reverend Peters (Herbie) when the tired and traumatised Christopher could not read his maths paper was very well executed, especially featuring the interaction of the calming influence of Siobhan who once again provided him with the tools he required to complete the paper in record time.

Obviously, there are lots of vital people behind the scenes orchestrating the magic that is live theatre.  The leadership team of Directors: Nancy Shackleton, Michelle Ellershaw, Mia Murray and Priscilla Burbridge are to be congratulated for creating this wonderful piece of theatre and taking the risk with an emotive subject with some very adult themes featuring an extraordinary protagonist.  I was very interested to learn that this was not the junior abridged version but an edited script without the expletives hence the incredible volume of dialogue which the cast, especially Tamzyn, tackled confidently on a par with adult productions.   Well done to Stuart Saunders in the tech box and anyone involved back-stage with set construction, costumes, props and chaperoning.

I was delighted to meet Nancy after the show and meet the highly enthusiastic ‘Upstagers’ themselves.  They were clearly supportive of each other and have obviously enjoyed the whole experience of working together to create a wonderful and very thought-provoking piece of drama.  

 

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