Theatre Production: Brighton Rock
Location: Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Broad Street, Birmingham
Showing: 10th – 14th April 2018
For those who have not read the Graham Greene novel, Brighton Rock is a dark and suspenseful thriller, based around the theme of life and death and right and wrong. With Greene portraying the message that those who should know the difference between right and wrong through their religion (Catholicism) were the ones committing sins, whilst the atheist in the novel was the one who always did right. This came across really well in the theatre production last night.
The story concentrates on Pinky (Jacob James Beswick) , a 17 year old boy who is a self made leader of a small mob in Brighton. Pinky has a few followers Spicier (Angela Bain) , Cubitt (Marc Graham) and Dallow (Dorian Simpson) . The four of them, led by Pinky, murder a visiting newspaper reporter Fred and then try to cover their tracks. The story sees Pinky getting together with Rose (Sarah Joy Middleton) a 16 year old waitress in order to keep her from telling people who murdered Fred.
Ida (Gloria Onitiri) Fred’s ‘friend’ , is determined to uncover the truth regarding Fred’s death and won’t stop until she finds out what happened to him.
It was a very well directed and designed theatre production, which gripped both a young and old audience alike. The moody synth driven score was a fantastic accompaniment to the show. Hannah Peel deserves a great deal of recognition for her work here, along with the drummer James Field and Laura Groves on the keyboard.
The stand out performances for me were from Jacob Beswick for his role as Pinky, who brought a malevolent presence to the stage and Jennifer Jackson who had a number of roles as an ensemble, who managed to capture my full attention to her whenever she was on the stage. It would be nice to see her in another production, taking one of the main roles.
Overall a fantastic show, worth seeing.
Well done @estherrichardson and the rest of the team. And thank you Birmingham Rep for yet another fantastic Press Night experience.
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Disclaimer: I was invited along to Birmingham Repertory Theatre to watch Brighton Rock with complimentary tickets, in return for an honest review of the production. All views are my own or of my families.
Photographs of the production are provided by Birmingham Repertory Theatre for use within this article.
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