Review: A Room with a View (Theatre Royal, Bath)

It is almost subversive. Theatre Royal Bath’s adaptation of E M Forster’s A Room with a View is not set in a future sci-fi world, turned into a book club discussion or been improvised into a two part epic. Instead it is as straightforward an adaptation as you could imagine, as easy to imagine gracing the stage in the year of its publication 1908 as it is today. You can understand the thinking, the "Downton effect" has made Edwardians trendy, but unfortunately Adrian Noble’s production could be prescribed by the NHS to cure insomnia.

The play, like the novel, is split into two distinct parts. In the first Lucy Honeychurch (Abigail McKern) and her guardian Charlotte Bartlett are on a trip to Florence, where they wander museums and churches, are introduced to ex-pats and those who leisure for profession and in the case of the independent Lucy discover a more seedy and dangerous part of town which leads to an encounter with the boyish George Emerson – the bland Tom Morley – and a blossoming discovery of love which leads to a heated moment in a field of violets which defines the rest of the play. In the second part we are back in England 18 months later, Lucy engaged to another man but about to be challenged when the Emerson’s re-enter her life.

The film version starring Julian Sands, Maggie Smith and an early role for a young Daniel Day Lewis was one of Merchant-Ivory’s biggest hits bathed in gorgeous cinematography of the vistas of Florence and the beauty of the English countryside. The problem with a literary adaptation that doesn’t turn it theatrical is that it can not compete. Simon Reade has managed to condense it into a pleasing two hours twenty but he has not found a way for it to work on stage and Noble’s production doesn’t help with some heavy handed staging. Some of the transitions in the first half suggest the hustle and bustle, the exotic and erotic of Florence fall completely flat; sparsely populated and full of very English extras that don’t get close to the passion of the Mediterranean spirit. A moment of violence on the street is almost laugh out loud terrible.

To be fair once it gets back to England it does get back on track with the cast clearly more comfortable in a world so often seen on our screens in recent years as to feel like home. The famous moment of skinny dipping in the lake also seemed to wake up a fair proportion of the auditorium. In Felicity Kendal they have a real trouper who is in a class above most of the work around her. I have previously seen her nail the heightened style of Coward but here she suggests a world of pain and loneliness behind the façade of jolly independence and clipped vowels. It is billed as a star turn, her face front and centre on the poster and she a solo final bow but she is undoubtedly best thing about the night. Alongside her work the other performances can be over pitched and there is a real lack of chemistry between the lovers that means those scenes land with a thud.

There have been some terrific adaptations from literary woks in recent years but by playing it too safe and straight this one fades fast from the memory.

A Room with a View plays at the Theatre Royal Bath until the 8 October and then tours until the 3 December.