Brideshead Revisited (York Theatre Royal)

Undoubtedly director Damien Cruden was looking for something ambitious and innovative for the re-opening of the refurbished York Theatre Royal. Equally beyond doubt is that his production of Brideshead Revisited, co-produced with English Touring Theatre, fills that bill. Unfortunately, it is as puzzling as it is compelling.

Evelyn Waugh's novel is a problematic subject for stage adaptation, rather better suited to film perhaps with its louche behaviour in lush surroundings, though there its satirical edge and existential debate are likely to give way to the upper classes behaving badly with style. Bryony Lavery's adaptation and Cruden's direction firmly banish any Downton Abbey tendency, but Waugh's unique mix of devotion and irony proves difficult to translate to the stage.

Lavery's version preserves as much of the plot of a substantial novel as anyone could expect of two and a half hours of stage time and most of the characters remain, with not too much doubling. But though often the concertina-ing of time is skilfully done, the price to pay is a confusingly hectic first half and the lack of development of some characters.

As an army officer in 1943 Charles Ryder visits Brideshead, a stately home taken over by the forces. This prompts his recollections of Brideshead and the Marchmain family, dating back some 20 years. From the undergraduate friendship/love between Ryder and Sebastian Flyte (Christopher Simpson), son of the expatriate Lord Marchmain and his devotedly Catholic wife, via Sebastian's alcoholic disintegration and Charles' on-off affair with Sebastian's sister Julia (Rosie Hilal), we finally arrive at the unyielding issues of faith and death.

The first half is essentially expressionist comic strip, with Sebastian's drunken antics not the only excuse for funny walks. Sarah Perks' designs and Richard G. Jones' lighting help to create many evocative tableaux, with sliding screens constantly re-shaping the stage picture, and Christopher Madin's music underpins the action in the best movie tradition. However, there is much that really confuses, from the microphone that keeps appearing to the casting of a woman (Shuna Snow, very clever, but odd) in three male parts.

In the second half, after a horribly over-the-top scene in a gay club, things settle. Sebastian disappears from the scene and the focus moves to marital relations and the final rites of Lord Marchmain, plus the ever-present requiem for Brideshead and all that it represents.

The admirable Paul Shelley, dying loquaciously, has the opportunity to shine denied to Caroline Harker as his wife in the frantic first half. Kiran Sonia Sawar, after flinging herself around as a child, settles to a lovely serious performance as the youngest of the Flytes. Brian Ferguson, meanwhile, has nobly maintained the still, if troubled, centre as Charles Ryder throughout.

Running time 2 hours 45 minutes (including interval)

Brideshead Revisited runs at the York Theatre Royal until 30 April, after which it tours.