The Stage

Brighton Rock

Published Friday 8 October 2004 at 11:20 by John Thaxter

Graham Greene added explanatory footnotes to the American edition of his terrifying, moral tale of razor gangs working protection rackets in thirties Brighton. But Giles Havergal’s new dramatic treatment, with a scene-setting prologue, is a masterpiece of clarity, dialogue drawn directly from the printed page, plus the echoing “I love you, I love you” coda that Greene himself devised for the film.

Havergal’s book gets a fluent staging from Michael Attenborough which, while keeping the briny beach at a distance, brings the salty tang of the Palace Pier and Metropole Hotel to vivid life on Lez Brotherston’s two-level setting. But the object of the exercise is a musical version, long a dream of film composer John Barry, with lyrics by Don Black.

There is no doubt which came first. Black’s words offer glimpses into the mindset of the characters, while Barry’s music provides the mood-setting wrap around. Just one song emerges from the score, a cynical duet of mature sexual pleasure for Ida and her current beau (Gary Milner), winning the only round of the evening - although this was also a well-deserved reward for Harriet Thorpe’s starry, sumptuous performance as the blowsy chanteuse who knows right from wrong.

Michael Jibson, who plays Pinkie as a Wayne Rooney lookalike, gives a powerful impression of teenage evil and Catholic angst, musically peaking in his troubled solo of ‘mortal sin’ against a pizzicato double bass, while sharing a tense wedding night with Sophia Ragavelas as his bride, the sweetly innocent Rose in splendid voice.