Investigating The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Hi everyone so here's the second part of my semi-spontaneous weekend away...to read about the first half and my trip to Made in Dagenham, click here. However,  this time it's all based around The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time so here goes...

To put it into context my mum had been wanting to see this play for a very long time but I'd kept delaying as I hadn't read the book and always wanted to see something else first. On Saturday 21st March I was dragged kicking and screaming (I didn't really...it just sounds better!) to the theatre where we managed to get reasonably priced tickets for half way back in the stalls.

Whilst not having read the book, my mum had filled me in on the brief details of the play. So for those of you who are like me the plot centres around an autistic boy, Christopher, who discovers a dead dog in the middle of the night. He then goes on to investigate and discovers who the murderer is and a lot more beside.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the theatre was how the play had spilled over into the auditorium. By this I mean that several of the seats had been covered as shown in the picture below (left) and, also, had little cards in them, which can be seen in the picture on the right. All of the covered seats were prime numbers, which I thought that this was a nice touch as Christopher loves prime numbers due to the logic of them. It, thus, made the play a very versatile experience that felt like it encapsulated you rather than just action going on on stage.

Prime Number Seats

Prime Number Notice

As for the stage, this was amazing...it was so technical in a beautifully mathematical way with the floor and all three walls being covered in lights that formed the squares of graph paper. The lights were, also, used to show constellations of stars as Christopher is fascinated by these, as well as showing Christopher's thinking patterns, his thoughts as he attempts to solve the mystery and his feelings when he gets overwhelmed. The latter is particularly effective as, in addition to loud music and sounds, it created a feeling of disorientation and that you couldn't cope with the world...I'm quite dubious about saying this (so don't hate me!) but I think it's as close to being autistic you could feel if you don't have autism. The staging in general was fantastic as it combined physical theatre with your standard performance creating the best of both worlds. Additionally, the props suited the play exceptionally well as they were all very basic, i.e. lots of white boxes, but were, also, very essential in telling the story...everything had a purpose, a place and a reason, it was incredibly thought about and, thus, brilliant for a play focusing on a boy with autism.

Finally, the cast need a huge mention as they were all superb and made the complex choreography look simple and fluid...which is probably due to the Pilates and circuit training they do every morning! Their acting was, also, flawless and a special mention needs to go to Graham Butler who played Christopher; he was stunning and really brought Christopher to life in a very real and believable way.

Overall, the performance was stunning and I can't believe I stayed away for so long...thank-you mum for finally dragging me along! 

Top Left: Me Outside the Theatre / Bottom Right: Programme and Tickets / All other photos of scenes from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Let me know if you've ever seen The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and what you thought of it. You can tweet me at @GreenGirlsRox...and don't forget to follow this blog and my Instagram to keep up to date with all my theatrical goings on.

Love you all

Kat

xx