Reader Reviews
Polar Bears (Donmar Warehouse, West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | Well played, but the play felt like a first draft with some good moments but no clear message or point. - addicted to theatre | 10 May 10 |
| This first play by novelist Mark Haddon is about a young bi-polar woman’s life with her partner, brother and mother (and a guest appearance by Jesus!). It grabbed my attention at the outset and the drama built well for over an hour, then for some reason it lost me. The shifts in time aren’t always clear, though I think I managed to keep up. The main problem with the play its that it doesn’t seem to have a lot to say. There are terrific central performances from Jodhi May and Richard Coyle and Jamie Lloyd’s staging is excellent, but I left feeling that it was a lot of talent given a few ideas to work with rather than a finished play. I think Haddon should have tried it out somewhere with a lower profile; it doesn’t do him or the Donmar any good to showcase what seems to me like work-in-progress. - Gareth James | 27 Apr 10 |
| Towards the end of a surprisingly long 90 minutes the thought ocurred that Mark Haddon had chosen to construct his play in a series of non-chronological scenes because he had been unable to write a coherent narrative on such a potentially strong subject. As a consequence there is no sense of the development of the relationship between John and his apparently disturbed wife Kay and absolutely no sense of the rage building which leads to the outcome (which is revealed at the start of the play). Even in such a short running time there are also several scenes which have almost no relevance to the story and one which seems to suggest that childhood trauma could have been the cause of Kay's illness when everything else points to a genetic illness. Mark Shenton has pointed out that the brilliant Broadway musical Next to Normal deals far more effectively with the harrowing story of a family coping with a wife and mother afflicted with bipolar disorder (plus it has a great rock score). Hopefully the WoS gossip comes to fruition and London audiences get the opportunity to see one of the most extraordinary shows I have seen in years. Meanwhile Polar Bears is a rare disappointment at the Donmar. It's still my favourite London theatre but it's also about time they did something about their awful programmes. The price went up to £3 some while ago but there is almost nothing to read apart from cast biographies - they should be ashamed of such a shoddy product which is woefully short of the Donmar's standard in everything else they do. - David Baxter | 15 Apr 10 |
