To Kill a Mockingbird at The Lowry Manchester Review
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Lowry, Manchester
19-23 May 2015
Reviewed by Lucy Knight
The celebrated story To Kill a Mocking bird sees young Scout, the daughter of lawyer Atticus Finch, tell the tale of how racial injustice takes over a small-town community from a child’s point of view.
Last night I was lucky enough to get to see the play performed live at the Lowry theatre in Salford, Manchester. I have never read the story of To Kill a Mockingbird before so I was unsure what to expect. I have many friends who studied the tale for their GCSE’s and was not surprised to see many school children also in the audience with GCSE exams fast approaching.
The play is an adaptation of Harper Lee’s 1960’s novel and is brought to the stage by director Timothy Shreader in this thought provoking drama.
At the beginning of the play, the entire cast came onto the stage and introduced the story by reading directly from the book. I thought this was a really innovative but simple way to start the play as it grasped the audience’s attention and related back to the original story.
Throughout the play, each member of the cast took turns to narrate from the book in their regional accents. This was really good and I found it very original.
The acting in the play was outstanding; however, the real stars of the show were the three child actors Rose Scout (Scout), Billy Price (Jem) and Milo Panni (Dill), who were absolutely fantastic and very brave to get on that big stage at such a young age.
What I really liked about the simple yet imaginative set was that it was angled and you could see where the cast had drawn a map of the street in chalk to annotate where each character lived.
I found the play to be quite interesting but the first act was very slow going and I found myself becoming disengaged from it. The second half (the trial) was a lot more entertaining however. I would rate it play 4 out of 5.
Rating: 4/5
Tickets cost from £18 to £30 (includes £2 booking fee),
To Kill a Mockingbird is at The Lowry in Manchester until 23 May 2015. For more information or to book tickets click here or call the box office on 0843 208 6000.
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000
