Don John

Synopsis

England, 1976. The Winter of Discontent. Cold hearts seek comfort and poor souls look for love. A woman nurses her dying father; a cleaner greedily devours her Open University course in the fight for a better life; a career woman seeks the path that her life never took, and the loyal friend, always in the shadows, fears he will disappear one day and no-one will notice. We are in the lonely hearts column of life. "Save me" is the silent call that drifts from their aching bodies. But wait. Help is at hand. Don John is here! Dangerous, naughty and irresistible, Don John is a vessel for all our desires – a delicious chancer. He enters our lives and leaves us changed. Oh yes, he leaves us, for Don John belongs to nobody but himself and The Devil!

Our Review:

14 April 2009

Since opening in Stratford-upon-Avon last December, Kneehigh Theatre’s raunchy update of the Don Juan story - created in association with the RSC and supported by the quiescent Bristol Old Vic - has toured the country before coming to rest for a month at the BAC.

It’s a belter of a show, and certainly fulfils director Emma Rice’s intention of calling the legendary lothario to account: Don John’s collection of conquests gang up on him at the end as he writhes in his death throes; Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni is consumed by hell’s fames, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The Don’s sexual fascination is never totally renounced, despite the odd criticism of his pimping Leporello, Mike Shepherd’s craven Nobby, and the tall, serpentine Icelandic actor Gisli Orn Gardarsson, co-founder of Vesturport, presents an entirely plausible erotically charged figure in his slinky black jumper and leather ...

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Latest User Review

Tom, London - 20 April 2009:

Awful, self-indulgent and without any positive points. Have been a huge fan of Kneehigh for my many years but will never go to another production. A script without any wit or depth, music without any context and subtelty and performances that a school production would be ashamed of. It was a perfect example of style over substance and one of the worst productions I've seen in a long time. If plays offered refunds, I'd demand one. ...

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