Andersen's English
From: Tuesday, 23rd February 2010
To: Saturday, 27 February 2010
Our Review: 
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Synopsis
Hans Christian Andersen arrives, unannounced, for a stay at the home of Charles Dickens and his large, charismatic family, in the Kent marshes. To the lonely and eccentric guest, members of Dickens’s household seem to live a life of unattainable bliss. But, with his broken English, Andersen doesn’t at first see the storms brewing within the family.
Our Review:
23 February 2010
While a triumph on certain levels, Sebastian Barry’s Andersen’s English, jointly produced by Out of Joint theatre company and Hampstead Theatre and directed by Max Stafford-Clark, is ultimately an unsatisfying experience.
It tells the story of an 1857 visit by acclaimed Danish children’s writer Hans Christian Andersen to Gad’s Hill Place, the house of iconic author Charles Dickens and his large brood. As Andersen’s stay extends, so the troubles and tensions simmering under the surface of the Dickens family start to bubble to the surface.
While undoubtedly an intriguing premise, the main problem with Andersen’s English, is that too much is packed into its modest one hour and forty-five minute running time (not including the 20-minute interval). Rather than a cohesive dramatic structure, the play unfolds more like a series of soap-opera type vignettes as each character’s problems are revealed and dealt with. Althou...
Creative
Sebastian Barry (Author)
Out of Joint (Company)
Max Stafford-Clark (Director)
Lucy Osborne (Design)
Tim Bray (Lighting)
Carolyn Downing (Sound)
Julian Littman (Musical Director)
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