The Whistling
Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff & Duncan Abel from novel by Rebecca Netley
The Mill at Sonning
Star rating 3
Of course fiction simply circles round the same handful of base stories. We all know that. But alas, Rebecca Netley’s novel – at least as it is adapted here – feels, pretty unoriginal. It’s Jane Eyre/Rebecca spliced with a hefty dose of Macbeth, appropriately perhaps, as we’re in Scotland. And of course, as in Jane Eyre and Rebecca there’s a fire (off-stage) and we get a pretty dramatic incantation scene as in the Scottish play.
It’s the 1860s when troubled, bereaved Elspeth (Rebecca Forsyth – strong performance) arrives on a remote island to be nanny to a traumatised little girl Mary (Saffron Haynes at the press performance I saw) who has become an elective mute. In what is a rather uneasy cross between a ghost story and a whodunnit Elspeth meets some sinister and some apparently kind people as she tries to work out what happened to Mary’s twin brother and to the previous nanny. She suspects skulduggery and, of course, she’s right although there’s a twist at the end.
The weak narrative is redeemed to a considerable extent by the quality of the acting and the imaginative way in which the cast of eight is directed by Joseph Pitcher on Diego Pitarch’s dark set which really does look like a very grey 19th century house on a Scottish island. All cast members not involved specifically in the action at any given moment form a hooded, silent chorus moving set items on and off, using physicality to evoke scenes and sometimes singing eerie Scottish ballads. The effect is quite disturbing, especially given Richard G Jones’s lighting which casts an atmospherically murky gloom, while always allowing us to see enough to know what’s going on.
And over all this is an excellent sound design by composer Simon Arrowsmith. It’s creepy: the bumps, whistles, humming in the house and the birds screaming on the beach along with musical snatches which connote mystery and, maybe something supernatural. He quite often makes the audience jump.
It’s an enjoyable piece of theatre which shows what a really competent director can achieve with an accomplished cast and inspired creatives. I shan’t be rushing out to buy the novel, though.
