THEATRE

Dostoevsky’s work on the page is intense and grabs you by the throat, pouring the author’s own wisdom and characters’ insights down your gullet whilst you are thus held. George Dillon does a very good job of taking on this mode, transfixing the audience in his role as the would-be suicide “Ridiculous Man”, reviled by others and almost despairing of understanding himself or life. We are taken on his dream of paradise and of an alternative humanity. He creates the picture of this other world quite vividly.

It is not all full throttle, and there is a gentler mode in the incident of the little girl which causes him to feel shame and to have an insight into himself. I would have preferred if he had lowered the volume somewhat in his final message, and drawn the  audience in more seductively. There could have been more variety of tone and delivery, but maybe George Dillon sees this man almost as the kind of street preacher who doesn’t do subtlety, and so he has to stay true to this character.

This was a most gripping and involving performance, and it was a pity that the audience was relatively small at the show I saw.