MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Amelie: The Musical, Alhambra Theatre, Bradford
Inventive staging of a contemporary film classic
Gamine: Audrey Brisson as Amelie
[Pamela Raith]
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
THE 2001 film Amelie has so many iconic scenes that it takes a brave person to adapt it for the stage.
Craig Lucas partly circumvents direct comparison in this musical version which, while maintaining the original’s surreal whimsicality, simultaneously makes it more physically grounded.
The basic story is untouched. Amelie, a lonely girl raised by a neurotic mother and iceberg father, spreads happiness in the lives of other people while ignoring her own needs. That changes when she meets the gently eccentric Nino and is forced to confront her own dream world.
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