The Physicists - Donmar Warehouse
Pro reviewers average
2013-06-18
Another nurse murdered in the world’s most illustrious sanatorium. And who’s to blame this time: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or the brilliant Johann Wilhelm Möbius?
But what are these great minds doing here, together at the same time...
Another nurse murdered in the world’s most illustrious sanatorium. And who’s to blame this time: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or the brilliant Johann Wilhelm Möbius?
But what are these great minds doing here, together at the same time? Who are these men? And what have they got to hide?
Written in the shadow of the atom bomb and at a time of unprecedented scientific advance, Dürrenmatt’s hilariously satirical masterpiece, in this exhilarating new version by Jack Thorne, considers if insanity is the only refuge for the dangerously intelligent.
Show Details
| Running dates | from May 31 2012 to Jul 21 2012 |
| Theatre | Donmar Warehouse |
| Pro Average | |
| Peer Average | |
| My Rating | Review This Show |
| Cheapest ticket | £10 |
| Most expensive ticket | £33 |
| Patrick Marmion (Daily Mail) | Full Review | |
| Paul Taylor (The Independent) | Full Review | |
| Michael Coveney (What's on Stage, Independent) | Full Review | |
| Libby Purves (The Times) | Full Review | |
| Henry Hitchings (Evening Standard) | Full Review | |
| Charles Spencer (The Telegraph) | Full Review | |
| Michael Billington (The Guardian) | Full Review | |
| Sarah Hemming (Financial Times) | Full Review | |
| Time Out (Other reviewers) | Full Review |
| Mary Tapper | ||
| Cabe Franklin | Another pacifist offering from Josie Rourke's first season at the Donmar. The first half, which centres on a crime scene in a sanitarium where a man who believes he is a famous physicist has strangled his nurse, brings to mind a farce, with its mannered line readings and over-the-top backstory. However, it's neither funny nor madcap enough to be farce, and it doesn't really give the sense of striving to be. The end result is that through all of Act One, it's not really clear what kind of play you're watching. After the interval, there's more sense, pace, characters interacting as though they're human beings, and an interesting idea or two. So, while the second half greatly improves the show, and makes clear what the point of it all was, for this viewer at least there would ideally be 40 percent less struggle to get there and 30 percent more to get. On the plus side, has typically excellent Donmar performances including John Heffernan as the physicist Möbius and Sophie Thompson as the hunchbacked sanitarium overseer Dr Mathilde von Zahnd. |
Overview, Cast and Creatives
| Genre | Comedy, Drama | |
| Synopsis | ||
| Another nurse murdered in the world’s most illustrious sanatorium. And who’s to blame this time: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or the brilliant Johann Wilhelm Möbius? But what are these great minds doing here, together at the same time? Who are these men? And what have they got to hide? Written in the shadow of the atom bomb and at a time of unprecedented scientific advance, Dürrenmatt’s hilariously satirical masterpiece, in this exhilarating new version by Jack Thorne, considers if insanity is the only refuge for the dangerously intelligent.
|
||
| Author | Jack Thorne | |
| Friedrich Dürrenmatt | ||
| Director | Josie Rourke | |
| Featured Actors/Actresses | Obioma Ugoala | |
| Adam McNamara | ||
| Ben Hardy | ||
| Oliver Coopersmith | ||
| Joanna Brookes | ||
| Justin Salinger | ||
| Miranda Raison | ||
| Paul Bhattacharje | ||
| John Heffernan | ||
| John Ramm | ||
| Designer | Rob Jones | |
| Lighting Designer | Hugh Vanstone | |
| Sound | Emma Laxton | |
| Music | Michael Bruce | |
| Tickets on sale | Dec 12 2011 | |