The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I incessantly calculate distances and arrival times when making a journey, in the same way that I was never quite comfortable having a pee at a latrine when there was a queue behind me.......however desperate I was the pee would never come!

Does that make me autistic or special?

Labels, laugh-out-loud black humour, empathy, Asperger's Syndrome and magnificent direction, are the hallmarks of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, a must see for anyone who has ever navigated a precinct using the joins in the pavement stones!

I read Mark Haddon's book several years ago and have a healthy cynicism of those theatrical types who seem all too ready to jump on the next money making bandwagon if it turns a buck......juke box musicals, films into stage shows, script extensions in order to accommodate the latest X Factor star, and so on.

But - are you ready for this - the process appears to be producing some worthy candidates; on the book front at least. First Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and now Haddon's novel, written over a decade ago, and what a joy it was to witness this refreshing, vibrant show which leaves you questioning every move you ever make!

Ask any medic and they will probably tell you that each of us is on the autism scale - I hate coming home to an untidy house so I always leave it neat before I go out - but it's only when it reaches the extremes of Asperger's that we start to categorise people although, sometimes, it's the 'categorisers' that should be under the microscope!

What I liked about this production was the magnificent use of the audience's imagination instead of lots of props, and the simplicity of the techniques employed to surprise the audience - a hurriedly assembled train set which then instantly lights up without any appearance of wires, clever stage craft - two people walking the main character along one of the vertical walls - and a wonderful digital backdrop used to take us into the chaotic inner world of Christopher Boone's autistic mind.

Joshua Jenkins was magnificent as Christopher, distorting his hands continually and bursting into screaming fits whenever anyone touched him! He was something akin to a manic memory man!

It's a simple story. A dog, speared with a garden fork, is found by Christopher in the garden - at night-time - and the entire show centres around his attempts to find the perpetrator of this heinous crime, only his detection is conducted with complete logic and honesty because of his inability to tell anything other than the truth.

The play is about 'us', all of us and the webs we weave - dysfunctional families, half truths, broken relationships; as seen through the eyes of a very special boy.

Haddon's novel, brilliantly adapted by Simon Stephens for the National Theatre, makes you realise to what extent we masquerade the English language through a complex series of polite phrases, innuendo and metaphor, only serving to cause confusion and misguided meaning.

The play strips everything back and its humour is in its complete laid-bare honesty......no distorted language, just facts.



I once remember speaking with a Chinese friend who loudly asked why the woman across the bar was so fat. Attempting to quieten her voice I advised that she could not say that and that she would be better saying 'the larger lady' in the corner. She paused for two seconds and replied: "That's the problem with the English, they never tell the truth, why do they lie?"

And that is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night! Oh yes, and when the cast has taken its bow don't be too eager to vacate your seat you might miss something. I will say no more.

And just one more thought.

A few months ago I bought a hoarder's house as part of a clearance project. Never seen anything like it. People were staggered at the volume of stuff brought out of the three bedroom property......we filled six industrial skips. It had been owned by a long since dead consultant psychiatrist. She would have loved the show.....I think!

Until Saturday 25th 2015

Alhambra Theatre, Bradford
7.30pm