4. London Tide made the stage come alive. No, literally.

I see you’re back…I suppose I should say hello. Don’t think I didn’t see you following me in the streets earlier. I’m onto you, you creeps.

Anyway, jokes aside–last night we saw London Tide at the Lyttleton Theatre, which is one of the theatres in the National Theatre building. Unfortunately, the picture of the free program is the only picture I am permitted to post, lest I get banned from the National Theatre forever.

London Tide is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend written by Ben Power with music and lyrics in conjunction with singer-songwriter PJ Harvey; it was directed by Ian Rickson with Ian Ross as the musical director. The show premiered with the National Theatre in April.

I thought that the work done by the entire team was absolutely phenomenal. It utilized many interesting, complicated, and evocative effects in production as well as an unpolished, honest tone in its performance that made it stand out to me in ways I could not have imagined just by reading the synopsis. There were technical effects I had never seen live before, such as a stage that can elevate and lower itself and very coordinated flywork with a grid of lights. Due to its being set on a river, there were a lot of unique effects that had to be interpreted by the production team, and were often displayed in creative ways.

This play revolves around change: the change in the tides, the change in public opinion, and the changes within characters, to name a few. As such, I observed that the director’s vision in putting on this production was to show an ever-dynamic setting from a basic, minimal set design by Bunny Christie and staging that ebbs and flows like the bank of the Thames. This interpretation allows for the people to be the central element of the story; this shows through all of the production elements. The lighting design by Jack Knowles highlights the characters and the changes that they go through exceedingly well. Throughout the entire play as well, the sound design by Tingying Dong and Christopher Shutt kept me entirely immersed in the world created by this absolute masterpiece of a play, which through a snapshot in time shows the most pivotal moments of all of these characters’ lives. With all of these special effects shown in the production, I think that it would have been very easy for the play to become a spectacle, but because of the wonderful acting and direction, I could never begin to think of it that way. I had no complaints whatsoever about this play, and given the chance would love to see it again.

I would go so far as to claim that it is the best show this side of the Thames (and maybe also the other side as well?).