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The Review - THEATRE by HOWARD LOXTON
Published: 2 October 2009

New menu for Breakfast

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
Theatre Royal Haymarket

THIS isn’t a staging of the movie. Samuel Adamson’s adaptation is closer to Truman Capote’s original novella, avoiding the romantic wrapping of the film, and Anna Friel as its heroine offers a Holly Golightly much closer to the book than Audrey Hepburn’s dark-haired brunette sophistication.
As the kid from the backwoods, rescued by a Texan horse doctor, groomed by Hollywood and now living off her powder room money from rich New Yorkers, Friel suggests her innocence but the charisma that draws people to her, despite her impossible behaviour, did not reach me in the middle of the stalls. She connects with the audience best when downstage singing to her guitar.
It is a fragmented adaptation that tinkers with the plot, and its many intimate scenes are not helped by a set consisting of two huge mobile fire escapes and a silhouetted New York skyline.
With the arrival of vet Doc Golightly, made touchingly real by John Ramm, the plotting becomes clearer and we become more involved in the story. As the wannabe writer who acts as narrator, “on the outside looking in” as Holly describes him, Joseph Cross offers the still colourless nonentity, yet to discover his sexuality.
Director Sean Mathias has invented a nice joke in having the same tall performer enter as a succession of actresses arriving at a party. There is some overplaying as characters have to establish themselves in quick cameos, though James Dreyfus gets OJ Berman just right, along with Dermot Crowley as bartender Joe and Suzanne Bertish’s opera singer.
A cherished book and a loved film (though a far from perfect one) create an audience with expectations. It is very difficult to leave them behind and see this production freshly. Perhaps those with no knowledge of either will find it more theatrically satisfying than I did.
Booking to February
0844 209 1805

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