BRIEF ENCOUNTER

Corn Exchange, Dorchester

ONE of cinema’s best loved films, which started life as a play by Noel Coward, has gone full circle with this stage adaptation by Emma Rice and performed by the Dorset-based Arena Theatre Company.

Anyone who was expecting a tear jerking evening of passion and woe was in for a surprise with this production which started with the cast of ten singing I Believe and who continued throughout the drama with bursts of other Noel Coward popular songs accompanied by a three-piece band.

The story of a doomed affair between an upper middle-class couple who meet by chance at a railway station is also given a light-hearted lift in this version by the sub-plot about the frisky goings on by a pair of working class station staff which contrasts with the stiff upper lip decorum of the leading couple.

On screen images of 1940s photographs form the scenery on an otherwise bare stage as Alec and Laura fall hopelessly in love but know that it is all going to end in sorrow.

Under the direction of Paul Nelson, the action steams along at a reasonable pace in a production that is nicely emotionally charged, thanks to an excellent performance by Jeremy Mills as Alec while Simon Meredith brilliantly takes on multiple roles, in particular as the comic station master.

And for those who remember with fondness the film score, there is even an extract from Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto sung by the cast at the end, though perhaps the less said about that the better.

The Arena Company will be at The Lighthouse, Poole in November with Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

MARION COX