We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea

Published Friday 4 July 2008 at 12:05 by Hugh Homan

I was a Malcolm Saville boy. Arthur Ransome I missed out on until much later when I discovered his Russian Tales. So I’ve not read the original yarns about Roger, Titty, Susan and John, but Nick Wood has come up with a splendid adaptation of Ransome’s 1937 adventure story We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea, which Ivan Cutting directs with aplomb for Eastern Angles.

The first night took place in a marquee on Ipswich waterfront (as part of the Ipswich Festival) and just a couple of yards from the briny, which pervades the drama - the Stour, Shotley, Pin Mill and Felixstowe all feature significantly - and to the accompaniment of an occasional stiff breeze tugging at the canvas, reminding us that we were not inside a brick building, but a venue which was providing verisimilitude for the dramatically-plotted story.

Four young players clamber around Rosie Alabaster’s amazingly atmospheric Goblin as Ransome’s quartet chart their way out of an English estuary and into a foreign harbour.

Each plays one of the famous four and one other character. There is a nice sense of period about these kids coping on their own under extraordinary, but quite believable, circumstances - lisle pullovers and plimsolls at the ready - but the human anguish between them is universal and timeless, although there are lots of laughs on the way, too.

Duncan Barrett is John, the eldest and inevitable leader of the pack. He neatly avoids any jolly hockeysticks suggestions, but captures movingly the stress that a nice boy has to cope with. Sister Susan is played by Laura Stevely, who conveys with great skill the almost-woman in thrall to her elder sibling. David Ashwood is excellent as young Roger, always hankering after his elder brother’s maturity, but not quite there yet, and Sarah Hunt is admirable and engaging as the idealistic Titty.

Full marks to the technical team for the sound and vision which helps the crew on their watery course. Highly recommended.