Whilst I've read a number of Neil Gaiman's stories, and have watched numerous TV shows and films that he's been involved in, I've never read the book 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane'. I was however aware of it being a stage performance in London, but I was never interested enough to go and see it. That is until I found out the show was on the road, and was coming to The Curve in Leicester. This would mean I could go to see it without thinking about travel or even potentially hotel costs.
For visiting The Curve in Leicester's cultural quarter, the nearest place to park is the NCP next door, and to then validate the parking at the theatre reception so it's also cost effective. There's a cafe inside the theatre as well, so if you find yourself turning up early you can easily get a drink and a little bite to eat. There's then several entrances into the theatre, and your ticket tells you which one to head to for easiest access to your seat. It's then nice and easy to find your seat, and in our case we were front row - just as we had been for The Wizard of Oz last month. That time I felt it was too close, so would soon find out if it was again. There was technically a row in front of us, but from my understanding this was to keep us away from performers that were going to be jumping onto the stage from the front.
The play starts off by introducing us to an unnamed protagonist (played by Trevor Fox, who then plays his father in the flashback) who is attending a funeral, and is made to remember an adventure from his childhood (played by Daniel Cornish) at Hempstock Farm, where a fish pond was referred to as ‘The Ocean’. This opens up a world of magical adventure to him, led by his new friend Lettie Hempstock (played by Millie Hikasa). This allows an evil being, Ursula (played by Charlie Brooks), to enter into his world and it soon becomes a living hell for the boy.
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
The runtime for this play was around 2 hours 35 minutes, with a short intermission. One of my favourite parts from this show was when Ursula was torturing (!) the boy and appearing at different doors between flashes of light. You’d ‘see’ her walk in one direction, but then appear somewhere else. It was a good effect.
If you’re a fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, this particular book, or suspenseful performances in general, then this really is worth seeing. It may not have been as good as My Neighbour Totoro, but then, what is? I found it far more enjoyable than the recent production of Wizard of Oz though.