The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

From the warm and friendly welcome that I received from Front of House staff through to the end of your fast-moving, poignant, and thoroughly enjoyable production, I had a wonderful time at the Barn Theatre. Having read and enjoyed Mark Haddon’s book when it was published in 2003, I was very much looking forward to seeing Wick Theatre Company’s production. I admit that I haven’t seen the West End version of the play, but I was aware that the show had relied on digital screens and other technology, and I was intrigued to see how you would approach your own production given the smaller size of the Barn. I am pleased to say that you absolutely exceeded all expectations on all fronts; you had such a multiskilled and talented cast and you really immersed us all in Christopher’s journey.

Ethan Dryer (Christopher Boone): You gave an absolutely exemplary performance as Christopher in every aspect. It would be very, very easy to allow your performance to slip into caricature or grotesque, but you had clearly done a huge amount of work in finessing Christopher’s character and how he behaved in different situations and under different stimuli; you gave a polished and professional performance at all times. I especially liked your lack of eye-contact with the other characters (other than Christopher’s mother in the flashbacks, a lovely touch) and the physicality of your responses to negative emotions showed the level of thought that you had put into your characterisation.

Dan Dryer (Ed & Drunk Passenger): Ed is a difficult role to pull off convincingly as you need to balance the man and the father sides of his character, keeping them both distinct but also intertwined, but you performed this task brilliantly throughout. You took us on Ed’s emotional rollercoaster, never overplaying any of the heightened emotion, but really bringing out his despair in the challenges facing him at almost every turn. Your physicality really supported your characterisation, and you gave us a “whole body” performance especially during the times of stress and distress.

Anna Quick (Siobhan): Combining the role of narrator, Christopher’s inner dialogue, and his teacher required you to be versatile and have the nuances of each persona worked out so that transitions between them were distinct but never clunky and forced. This was a lovely, calm performance which really grounded the action and focused it, and you adapted and morphed around Ethan’s character to give a sensation of one person delivering the performance, which was brilliantly done.

Justine Smith (Police Officer, Mrs Alexander, Lady in Street, Posh Woman & Woman on platform): You were a joy to watch in delivering your many characters, and over a wider range of ages which is never an easy task. I really did enjoy watching your very expressive face, which helped to distinguish between the characters but without over-playing. You had clearly worked very hard on your characterisations to make them very distinct.

Emily Dennett: (Judy & Neighbour): You gave us wonderful balanced emotional characterisation here as Christopher’s mother – balance between Judy as “Mother” and Judy as the person with her interactions with Roger was beautifully done, with seamless switching between the two. There was lovely, open, and honest delivery around Judy’s failings but always linking it to the inner yearnings of “what might have been” – you brought out the guilt of her lack of ability to deal with Christopher’s behaviour well, with full believability and on-point delivery without ever losing the sympathy or empathy of the audience.

Julie Viinikka: (Mrs Shears, Mrs Gascoyne, Ticket Seller, Shop Keeper, Police Officer): You put in so much work over so many characters, and so many really well-delivered accents and characters throughout. What I liked was that even with characters that had very small interjections of dialogue, you managed to build and portray them immediately and get them across – really well done!

David Peaty: (Police Sergeant, Reverend Peters, Mr Thompson, Policeman, Man on Platform, Drunk Passenger, Roger): I really loved every moment that you were on stage, each of your characters were stand alone, not only in terms of their voices, but the physicality and posture of each one – and your facial expressions, which you managed and performed without any of these traits becoming distracting for the story, instead allowing them to support and really strengthen the believability of your work.

Direction & Production (Mike Wells & Team): When you weren’t delivering your excellent main characters you took on the role of “Greek chorus” but also ably and smoothly managed the scene changes and reflected emotion without drawing the eye of the audience – sometimes just observing and adding gravitas but at other times amplifying the emotions of the main characters in the scene. You had all clearly done a lot of work on the subtleties of the “chorus” acting with nobody distracting or slipping into overplayed mime or farce!

I really like that all costumes were all laid out in the gym set and the use of the black boxes to create the various locations – it was very effective especially when augmented by your cast being cash machines and the such like! Nicely done – it proves that you don’t need lots of technology to get your ideas and story across. There were many stand-out moments for me throughout, especially the concerted whole ensemble moments like the London Underground/station scenes as you delivered the aural and visual overstimulation felt by Christopher from the signage and sounds of the stations– brilliant!

One small constructive comment: one of the challenges for a multi-part cast is that if your lead characters also take on other (sometimes multiple) smaller roles, there needs to be a clear identifying element to help distinguish their change of persona. Your actors can perform their socks off with their different characterisation, but if they look the same as their ‘main’ incarnation then it can lead to a little confusion, especially if it is a short scene or a quick transition. This only occurred once or twice (when the actors playing Christopher’s parents were also used in crowd scenes or were meant to represent passers-by), and was largely down to the structure of the play rather than any reflection on the actors’ work – but I mention it just for future consideration. This was just a tiny point which didn’t in any real way detract from your production.

Given the strength of your cast, this would have been a fantastic show even if you had done it in the car park – I believe that one of the of the best things you can say about sound and lighting in a production is that you didn’t notice them. Aside from a few initial lighting hiccups (which are just a hazard of tech/live theatre and don’t need further mention) the lighting and soundscape across the show was very well done and really did support and enhance your production and the transitions between scenes without being distracting or overdone – it was a great balance of all parts.

Congratulations to you all on a barnstormer (no pun intended!) of a show – I very much look forward to seeing your next production.

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