WHILE he has taken huge liberties with his source text, Hugh Leonard has rendered a most dramatically adept theatrical entertainment derived from Charles Dickens's original novel. Indeed the stage script, in combination with Bruno Schwengl's stylishly effective (and purposefully anachronistic) settings and costumes, allied to Alan Stanford's highly proficient direction, has effectively removed all the more ephemeral Dickensian elements from the tale. Here is a colourful and often comic melodrama in which the issues of tyranny and subjection, of self serving villainy and self sacrificing heroism, can be addressed in a sanitised manner, without the real nitty gritty of extreme cruelty, social injustice and physical pain intruding too much into the entertainment.
Bill Golding is, most effectively, the decent old banker who takes us into the tale as he seeks to rescue Dr Manette (Alan Barry) from his 18 year, imprisonment in the Bastille. Gwynne McElveen is Dr Manette's daughter, Lucie, who is subsequently to find herself torn ambivalently between Charles Darnay (Michael Devaney as the upright innocent who has spurned his inheritance from the evil St Evremonde aristo, played superbly wickedly by Robert O'Mahoney) and Sydney Carton (Stephen Brennan as the self indulgent alcoholic who spurns his life to win Lucie's eternal regard).
Ronan Wilmot is the venal inn keeper Defarge who sets out protecting. Dr Manette and ends up prosecuting his friends. Britta Smith is the dominantly vengeful Mme Defarge, John Kavanagh the disgustingly evil Barsad who will line up with whoever pays him most or terrifies him least. Philip O'Sullivan is the bombastically amoral English barrister Stryver, and Eanna MacLiam the ever helpful grave robber. Marion O'Dwyer is the redoubtable Miss Pross who will protect her charge Lucie from both good and evil, and Aiden Grennell is the judge who will adjudicate anything in accordance with the prevailing political will.
Adam Silverman's lighting disregards the old verity of trying to light the actors' faces adequately but is atmospherically effective in an evening designed very well to provide comfortable entertainment.
