As you’d expect from the producers of War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, there’s a glory of onstage magic in The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. In a theatrical extravaganza that’s both scary and supremely beautiful, deliciously monstrous supernatural beings, assisted by devilishly divine spectacles of sound and light, impress even those who aren’t big fans of fantasy. With masterly puppetry, slick illusions, technical perfection and a superb artistic flow of choreographed movement it captivates and amazes, so it doesn’t matter so much whether you buy, body and soul, into the story or not.
With tweaks and alterations, the play is based on Neil Gaiman’s 2013 book, which, like many books in which supernatural worlds are created (CS Lewis, Lewis Carol, JK Rowling, Pullman, Tolkien) the story begins with regular characters in our own good, bad and ugly world before introducing supernatural, fantasy elements that create absolute terror and dire conflict. Gaiman’s sparser writing and Joel Horwood’s adaptation don’t create an entire fantasy world, but instead, they “snip and stitch” into our own world supernatural elements that are lurking “out there” and that suddenly break through to create havoc.
We start at a small funeral, surrounded by a forest of high, shadowy branches that line the darkened stage. Indeed, the larger reaches of the stage remain dark and shadowy throughout, scenes being lit in beautiful, imaginative variety within the darkness while, at strategic, terrible moments, immense floods of intense colour and mists pour forth. When a middle-aged man walks down the lane away from the funeral he meets Old Mrs Hempstock (played long-haired and full of ancient wisdom and uncanny magic by Finty Williams), an old neighbour who triggers memories of when he was a boy here. Immediately, the boy appears (twelve now rather than the seven-year-old of the book) and his remembered childhood springs to life. As with us all, some memories may be distorted, mangled, embroidered or imagined according to our own psychology, but this boy’s experiences are outrageously vivid and unique to say the least.
The boy, made credible and personable by Keir Ogilvy, keeps us on his side as he combats the powers of evil that break into his life and threaten to destroy the world, and he’s assisted by three generations of Hempstock women, good souls but weird, who root to protect our world although not properly of it themselves. Lettie, the youngest Hempstock (played bright and enthusiastic by Millie Hakasa) becomes a good friend to the bullied, lonesome, bookworm boy. It’s she who claims the Hempstead farm’s duck-pond is an Ocean – an Ocean she later transports to the boy in a bucket to help him escape the monstrous creatures who will devour him. As silken waves billow and swimming puppets glide, sparkling with light, the effect is stupendous.
Fabulous effects naturally accompany appearances of the truly hideous and malevolent monster from beyond who takes on the outwardly beautiful, glamorous form of Ursula, played with great verve by Charlie Brooks and with equal measures of deceptive, pink-heeled charm and full-on sadistic villainy. Masterful puppetry presents her first as a gigantic, terrifying, shape-shifting, spiky-limbed, shaggy, shadowy flea; once in womanly form, illusions buzz her round the stage in impossible ways via sudden, dizzying proliferations of brightly outlined doors. She can also fly, splendidly suspended against a radiantly lit sky. Of course, living as nanny to the boy and his sister, she soon gets busy seducing and manipulating their Geordie dad (convincingly played by Trevor Fox, who’s also the grown-up non-Geordie boy at the funeral.) Maybe it’s a good thing the mother who appears in the book, is already dead when the play starts!
Gory moments and dark, destructive forces in various horrifying guises – and dark, destructive forces in regular humans, too – also bring fright to those keen to be frightened and smiles of appreciation to those who are not, while delightful touches of ballet, acrobatics and humour pepper the horror and cast members, puppeteers and fully integrated prop shifters all contribute as one to a slick beauty of choreographed movement throughout.
Amidst all this fantastical horrification, themes of friendship, family love, sacrifice, loss, loneliness, hope and self-belief bring out more earthly human emotions, but it’s largely the triumphant, large-scale, visual spectacle that’s key to this piece, creating memorable enjoyment even for those who just cannot suspend their disbelief from such a great height as to be totally caught up in the story.
Eileen Caiger Gray
The play tours widely until October. For more information on dates and venues follow this link.
