{"id":25322,"date":"2019-11-28T11:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-28T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=25322"},"modified":"2019-11-28T11:00:57","modified_gmt":"2019-11-28T10:00:57","slug":"a-review-of-the-british-stage-production-of-my-brilliant-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=25322","title":{"rendered":"A review of the British stage production of “My Brilliant Friend”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a saga of the 60-year friendship between two girls from a poor neighbourhood of Naples after the Second World War: the narrator Elena Greco, known as Lenu, who becomes an accomplished writer and Raffaella Cerullo, known as Lila, whose never leaves Naples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first novel in the series is called \u201cMy Brilliant Friend\u201d<\/em> and I reviewed it here<\/a>. The second novel is titled \u201cThe Story Of A New Name\u201d<\/em> and you can read my review here<\/a>. The third novel is \u201cThose Who Leave And Those Who Stay\u201d<\/em> and I reviewed it here<\/a>. The fourth and final novel in the chronicle is called \u201cThe Story Of The Lost Child\u201d<\/em> and you\u2019ll find my review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that I live on London’s South Bank, the National Theatre is only a 10 minute walk away and this week, for the first time, I was at the theatre at 9.30 am to obtain cheap same-day tickets. Parts One and Two of “My Brilliant Friend”<\/em> – starting at 1.30 pm and 7 pm respectively – cost me only \u00a315 each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two plays take over five hours in total to cover all four Neapolitan Novels. Niamh Cusack plays Lenu, while Catherine McCormack is Lila, for the six decades of the narrative. The work is adapted by playwright April de Angelis and directed by Melly Still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a hugely ambitious set of plays both in scope and style. Critics have loved it and the Canadian theatre graduate sitting by me really admired it. Even allowing for the fact that I much prefer the cinema to the theatre, I was disappointed by the work, primarily because it seemed to me to lose the essentially Italian nature of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actors use a range of accents from around the British Isles and both the music and video material are far too generic for a tale that is all about post-war impoverished Naples and the complicated relationship between two Neapolitan women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"