The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Ingeniously immersive and often quite genuinely scary

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin

★★★★☆

The stage can be surprisingly resistant to the genre of fantasy. Brought to concrete life, the language of magic risks being made literal. With cinematic and televisual competition, it is an act of great chutzpah to take on the challenge of staging the supernatural work of Neil Gaiman, whose most recent achievements include the serial adaptations of American Gods and The Sandman for TV. But Katy Rudd’s acclaimed touring production from London’s National Theatre is infused with breathtaking theatricality and creative special effects that are enhanced rather than diluted by their rough immediacy.

Adapted for the stage by Joel Horwood, The Ocean at the End of the Lane follows Boy (Keir Ogilvy) across the boundaries of “forever” on Hempstock Farm, where a strange young girl called Lettie (Millie Hikasa) helps him come to terms with his mother’s recent death. In order to exorcise his grief, however, Boy unwittingly allows the dangerous figure of Skarthach (Charlie Brooks) to infiltrate the real world. In an echo of Gaiman’s earlier novel Coraline, she poses as Ursula, an Other Mother, poised to destroy Boy’s already fragile family.

[ Neil Gaiman: ‘15 minutes before the end I realise I have tears running down my face’ ]

If the spectacle is superior to the story, which struggles most in the opening and closing “present day” scenes, this is a small price to pay for a production that is ingeniously immersive, frequently surprising and often quite genuinely scary. By way of Gaiman, Horwood presents themes of family, friendship, grief and growing up, but none of the themes or characters is as memorable as the slippery satin of the ocean billowing above our heads in the stalls, the stars twinkling in the thicket of the forest, or Skarthach appearing as Ursula through a series of multiplying doors. Stage designer Fly Davis, take a bow.

Steven Hoggett’s choreography casts the general ensemble of six actors in black as key players in the action, enabling the main characters’ passage through the dimensions, as well as bringing the more sinister creatures to life with the help of Samuel Wyer’s costume and puppet design. Jherek Bischoff’s atmospheric composition, meanwhile – heavy on synthesisers, á la Stranger Things – completes the “total theatre” effect. This is big-budget showbiz at its best.