A Monster Calls

based on the novel by Patrick Ness

seen at the Old Vic on 11 July 2018

Sally Cookson directs Matthe Tennyson as Conor O'Malley, with Marianne Oldham as his mother, Selina Cadell as his grandmother, Stuart Goodwin as the Monster, and a supporting cast playing the other characters, in this company-devised adaptation of the celebrated novel by Patrick Ness about a 13-year-old boy whose mother is desperately ill, and who is confused, angry and terrified by the situation and his conflicting reactions to it. The novel itself is based on the ideas of the late Siobhan Dowd, who died before she could complete her version of the story.

The stage is a bare white box with functional wooden chairs placed along the sides, and a number of large ropes suspended from above and tied back to the wings. One panel on high on the back wall cn be opened to reveal the instrumentalists who provide most of the musical accompaniment and some of the sound effects (other music and effects are pre-recorded). The white space reflects Conor's numb mind, pays tribute to Peter brook's famous description of the acting arena, and allows for some colourful projections, particularly of Conor's persistent nightmare.

The book is very much told from Conor's point of view. This is cleverly reflected in the play by the fluid adoption of different characters  by most of the cast, and by the simple rearrangement of chairs to suggest home and classroom and some places in between, and later, grandma's house and the hospital. The most effective piece of stagecraft is the evocation of the yew tree and the 'monster'; the tree is created by the tangling of the ropes, and the monster climbs into and out of it. On another level, the routines of Conor's life - managing the house, getting his own breakfast, getting dressed for school - are rendered both habitual and impersonal by the various members of the cast providing the necessary props - cereal, bowl, milk, spoon; shirt, trousers, tie, socks, shoes (the messiness of a teenager's life signalled by the random placing of these personal effects around the stage).

All this unfussy but evocative work allows us to imagine the daily round of Conor's life without the clutter of realistic sets, which in turn makes it easier to evoke the fantastical elements of the story - the irruption into Conor's already strained life of the Monster whose real purpose he only gradually realises during the progress of the hard lessons the monster tries to teach him. In a world where fantasy-based films go to inordinate lengths with CGI effects to create their environments, it's a risky strategy for engaging a young audience, but at this preview, filled with several large parties of primary school children, it proved brilliantly successful: the audience was completely attentive throughout the performance, having been exuberantly noisy beforehand and during the interval: a sure sign of success.

Matthew Tennyson, a young actor of great sensitivity sometimes displayed by a too-mannered expressiveness, here plays Conor with perfect poise, scrabbling to hold his life together, bewildered by the violent havoc his emotions can wreak asmuch as by the unwillingness of the adults around him to be honest or to punish him for what even he can see as unacceptable behaviour. As he gradually faces up to the realities of his mother's illness, and is also implacably forced to confront his own demons, Conor's almost mask-like reserve crumbles, and Tennyson manages this tranformation most affectingly.

Around him, the rest of the cast provide excellent support; the minefield of conversations with his mother, his grandmother, his father, his schoolfriends and enemies, are all realised with startling immediacy, ile the more expository episodes of the monster's three tales are also well-managed, with the cast acting out the narratives as the monster speaks. If the lessons of these tales, in which ambiguity of motive (within the story) and of judgement (by Conor listening to them) are a bit too close to preachiness, the danger of losing our interest by being told what to think is, in the end, mostly avoided, not least because the whole point is that there is often more than one way to think about any human situation.

It's interesting that here, just as in Everybody's Talking About Jamie (recently reviewed), the main character is accused of overweening self-importance - the crisis in both Conor's and Jamie's lives blinding them to the way they must appear to their peers. The high spirits of Jamie's successfully managed school prom could not be in more stark contrast with the loss that Conor must face, and it is a tribute both to Patrick Ness's novel and to this stage adaptation, that such a painful conclusion can nevertheless allow for a note of cautious optimism for Conor's future.