The Hobbit – Palace Theatre, Manchester

Book: JRR Tolkien

Adaptor: Glyn Robbins

Director: Roy Marsden

Reviewer: Jimmy Hardwick

The Public Reviews Rating:

The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien’s beloved classic, was born partly out of his believe that the English had no real mythology of their own. As an accomplished mythology scholar he was in a position to know and The Hobbit was written to redress this balance. Using texts such as Beowulf, Tolkien invented people, cultures and even entire languages which fill this story. His novel has, of course, endured and is due to be made into another Hollywood epic this year. Glyn Robbins’ adaptation is a brave attempt to bring this most complex story onto the stage and for the most part he succeeds although there are one or two problems.

The heartbeat of the Hobbit is of course Bilbo Baggins and he is here excellently played by Christopher Llewellyn. Bilbo is a character with hidden depths, as Gandalf sees, and Llewellyn brings this out well. I can believe that this Bilbo could be underestimated and show a steely side. Gandalf the Grey is the other main character, the guide and comfort to Bilbo and the person who realises what the hobbit is really made of. Christopher Robbie is a conventional and fine Gandalf who brings the necessary gravities to the role.

Gollum (Russell Clough) perhaps suffers in comparison to his CGI/Human counterpart; Andy Serkis may have spoiled playing Gollum for all other actors! The rest of the cast are fine and I particularly enjoyed the stone based stomping of the trolls (William St Clair, Anthony Gabbiel and Craig Whittaker). Thorin Oakenshield (Andrew Coppin) and his companions (Kirk Barker, Seb Morgan, James Hedley and Danny Fox) accompany Bilbo with energy and physicality.

One of the best things about this production is the cleverly conceived set (David Shields) which added a lot to the story. The Hobbit takes place in so many locations, from the Shire to the misty mountains, and the set coped well with all of it. It provides the sense of movement so important in this traveller’s tale. Also notable are the cleverly created creatures, the spiders and the dragon, which are impressive (and indeed where a little bit too much for some of the younger members of the audience).

So far, so good. However there are some problems with this play. The fight scenes, so epically described in Tolkien and no doubt to be shown in CGI glory, are not inspiring. I cannot think of a way of doing them better with such a small cast but the fact remains that these scenes are wide of the mark. The music was also a concern as I felt it intervened too much in the story.

But these problems aside this is a fine stab at a difficult adaptation. It moves along at a cracking pace with adventure and danger always around the corner and the suspense is maintained all the way through. Well worth seeing.