Roll up, roll up, the performance is about to begin! That's the sense conveyed at the start of Theatre O and the Young Vic's splendid adaptation of Joseph Conrad's the Secret Agent. Not a typical nor expected introduction to this famous novel from the author of the Heart of Darkness, but one which enhances the theatrical aspects of the story.
Conrad's book is a gripping albeit depressing account of anarchy, asking questions about who perpetrates it and why, based on a real-life attempt to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Everything revolves around Verloc, a family man and purveyor of porn, his all-suffering wife Winnie, her autistic brother Stevie and the mother-in-law, who is more concerned with Verloc's penchant for mustard, than her children's need for emancipation. Verloc, double agent and buffoon, is ostensibly working for both the British and the Russians, yet actually doing nothing for either, until the day that idiocy and espionage converge, resulting in tragedy.
Conrad's writing is dense and contradictory, with a darkly humourous overtone. Matthew Hurt's writing is concise, contemporary and funny, whilst the contradictions are conveyed through the use of seemingly opposite theatre genres. Gothic thriller is mixed with music hall grotesque, physical theatre and choreographed dance - there's even some audience participation thrown in, with unexpected success.
Helena Lymbery plays the mother (in-law) with absurdity and just a hint of Sybil Fawlty. Lymbery proves the strength of her acting in a totally unrecognisable casting as the sinister Professor, while Leander Deeny puts in a terrifying performance as the Russian agent, Vladimir: deranged, pompous and comic, with sinister overtones.
The set by Simon Daw is a wonder to behold. It atmospherically depicts Victorian London in all its rain-soaked smog-engulfed glory, yet also conjures up a sense of opulent seediness mixed with carnival sideshow. Even the highly polished floor conveys a sense of the damp, as well as providing a physical manifestation of the characters' reflections. The tone of each scene is enhanced by Anna Watson's striking lighting effects, whether these are the modern 'gaslights' on stage, or the background rain, which could at times appear to be stars viewed from the Observatory.
Hurt has taken the main scenes from the novel and worked with the cast to make each scene (almost) a stand-alone tableaux, but what works visually, fails slightly in terms of blending the performance together. The rendition of 'I don't want to set the world on fire', is ironic in terms of both the plot and the performance, which, with a bit more of a spark, could indeed set the theatre world on fire. Conrad questions the dark side of humanity, how we feel about 'the other' and what makes a terrorist. This performance does the same, for it quite clearly could be me - or it could be you.
