Ghosts at the Duchess Theatre, review

By Charles Spencer Published: 10:51AM GMT twenty-five February 2010

Iain Glen and Lesley Sharp, stars of Ibsen"s Ghosts

Whenever I solve down to give a intolerable new fool around a great kicking, the mental recall of Ibsens Ghosts quickly nags in the behind of my mind.

The fool around caused a liaison in Scandinavia when it was initial published in 1881, and when it was staged in Britain a decade after it captivated the full rage of The Daily Telegraph, that described it as "an open drain; a antipathetic bruise unbandaged; a unwashed action finished in open and a lazar residence with all the doors and windows open".

"It was as if Ibsen had forsaken a explosve

It says most for Ibsens strength and bravery as a stage player that the fool around is still able of intolerable today, not with the references to hereditary syphilis (though the tangible name of Oswalds disease is never essentially referred to in the text) but in the energy of the tragedy and the desert of the vision.

This new prolongation destined by Iain Glen, who additionally stars as the insufferably judicial Pastor Manders whose each word of dignified recommendation proves to be both villainous and wrong, additionally reminds us that this stays a fool around for the times, even if Brecht did loftily acknowledgement that Ghosts became not pertinent as shortly as syphilis became curable.

When Mrs Alvings cheerless son begs her to put him out of his wretchedness with hypnotic capsules when his disease worsens, usually for her to be unexpected confronted with a shrunken bombard of a man who has obviously lost his mind, one thinks of the new headlines about forgiveness killings, and mothers who have risked jail to recover their young kids from a vital death.

And Ibsens investigate of pomposity and the risk of stealing worried truths stays as dramatically alive as ever.

Though the entertainment is powerful, Im not certain that Glen was correct to stand in as both actress and director. The early scenes infrequently miss the compulsory clarity of meaningful tragedy as Ibsen turns the screw on his characters; and the fool around would be far some-more absolute if it wasnt interrupted by an nonessential interval. But where it counts most, the fool around functions strenuously in Frank McGuinnesss unstuffy new translation. Glen himself is both comic and chilling as the self-righteous Pastor Manders and his dignified fall when his own firmness is subjected to Ibsens debate hearing is a happiness to behold.

Lesley Sharp could find some-more working indignation in the scenes when she has to continue his platitudes, but her abhorrence and pique at the finish goes right to the romantic heart of this made at home tragedy. Harry Treadaway memorably captures the twitchy apprehension of Oswald, in the hold of a disease he doesnt understand, and there is clever await from Jessica Raine as the bold lassie who isnt utterly what she seems and Malcolm Storry as her divergent father.

I have a camber that the prolongation will benefit serve detail, energy and abyss as the run progresses - and it is already a chilling, infrequently stirring comment of Ibsens bloody work of art of the approach the past can poison the present.

Ghosts tickets at Box Office