Moby Dick

Based on Herman Melville’s one great novel, adapted for the London stage by Orson Welles, and staged by Sport for Jove, well-known now for their signature of poetic and physical skills, this Moby Dick has a fine pedigree.  

Danny Adcock is a compelling, nuggetty Captain Ahab obsessed with revenge against the mighty whale who took his leg.  

Also setting sail are Melville’s exotic, multi-racial characters, four here played by women with varied effectiveness – including a Polynesian prince/ss (Wendy Mocke), a proud Indian harpooner (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash) and a Nantucket Quaker (Francesca Savige).

Tom Royce-Hampton is vitally true as the Irish Ishmael narrating the tale and Bryden White-Tuohey is a nicely malevolent sailor.  Rachel Alexander is the crazed Afro-American  boy, Pip; Badaidilaga Maftuh-Flynn, the African Daggoo; Jonathan Mill, the ever amiable Stubbs: and Mark Barry strong as the ship’s owner.

The challenge for all and each is to voice Welles’ poetic often philosophising text, yet establish in brief time real and urgent characters, and drive the drama with good measure and clarity.   Adam Cook’s production sometimes falls between these stools, despite Mark Thompson’s authentic and cluttered ship-deck, moodily lit by Gavan Swift. 

Vocals skills are this time not all uniformly powerful and there’s generalised falsity in some of the on-deck carry-on.   There remains though, alive in the Melville/Welles text, some memorably powerful moments. And the whale gets to win in the end. 

Martin Portus

Photographer: Marnya Rothe