Let the Right One In, Apollo Theatre - review: Revamped Apollo lets the right one in for grand re-opening

A revamped Apollo lets the right one in for grand re-opening
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Fiona Mountford15 July 2014

In other circumstances, all the buzz around this production would centre on the fact that it is the first West End transfer for both the National Theatre of Scotland and for the Royal Court regime of Vicky Featherstone.

It’s also a play about vampires, based on a hit Swedish book and film, which helps too. Yet the re-opening of the Apollo after the events of December, when part of the roof collapsed during a performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, means that these are not other circumstances.

Extensive refurbishment work now sees the balcony level closed off and a wonderfully evocative gauze-projected cyclorama, by the show's designer Christine Jones, spanning the domed, formerly doomed, ceiling. It portrays a tree-lined, wintry, nocturnal landscape, which perfectly echoes the world of the show, nominally Swedish yet with Scottish accents, in which outcast, bullied teenager Oskar (Martin Quinn) strikes up a friendship with Eli (Rebecca Benson), the strange new girl next door. Eli, it soon becomes apparent, is a vampire, although the word is never used in Jack Thorne’s spare yet engaging script.

There’s an air of wistfulness, longing and loneliness to John Tiffany’s appealing, occasionally ethereal production, which is underscored by a thrillingly haunting soundscape from Gareth Fry. There are cherishable moments of tender, tentative romance as the two misfits disregard all practicalities and start to fall for each other. Benson is sensationally good, conveying just enough of an idea of otherworldliness and planting a note of carefully quelled confusion into every sentence Eli utters.

I’d like to say that the applause at the end raised the roof. But, given the context, that might not be quite the expression to use.

Until September 27 (0844 412 4658), apollotheatrelondon.co.uk

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