Find out what is being said this revival of Dodie Smith’s play, playing at the National Theatre until the 27th March.
WhatsOnStage: **** “Unpacking all of this is quite the balancing act. But Emily Burns’s production manages it beautifully. She’s given a gift in Smith’s dialogue, which masterfully observes every corner of family life, and tempers nostalgia and heartache with a steady stream of zingers. And Burns runs with it – her warm, expansive direction creating a family that is utterly convincing, and giving an exploration of life and the passage of time that is moving but never maudlin.”
The Telegraph: **** “Poignant, exquisitely performed theatre – Dodie Smith’s prophetic play mourns a way of life that is already gone.”
The Independent: **** “Why is the National Theatre staging this frightfully old fashioned play from the 1930s? A superb performance from Lindsay Duncan and a production tinged with foreboding are reason enough.”
The Stage: **** “Emily Burns revives Dodie Smith’s 1938 play about family dynamics in a crisp and timely production starring Lindsay Duncan.”
The Guardian: **** “This glorious revival of Dodie Smith’s interwar family drama is a visual and emotional feast. Director Emily Burns breathes rich life into a weekend gathering to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of Dora (Lindsay Duncan) and her husband Charles (Malcolm Sinclair). Duncan is the most graceful of performers.”
City Am: *** “Smith’s text gets better in the second act when the profound observations about ageing ramp up. Lines like “there are nice things at every age if we enjoy it at the time instead of in retrospect” and “getting older comes hardest on those with good memories” flesh out the characters who grow with necessarily colour. Another rumination about how being 40-something feels too close to youth but being 50-something makes you the youngest of the old bunch felt relatable to me even at 34.”
Evening Standard: *** “There is a reason, though, that Dodie Smith is chiefly remembered for her novel I Capture the Castle and a certain story about a lot of Dalmatians, rather than for her eight interwar stage comedies. Dear Octopus was the most successful of these but despite the merits of Burn’s revival, it feels incurably quaint and dated now.”
British Theatre.com: **** “There are many joys in the sublime script and performances, especially the way that Nora gathers the family together, then sends them off to do little jobs, but love shines from her every pore. It’s very genteel, and the pace is gentle, occasionally, much like Nicholas’s Dear Octopus speech, goes off at tangents and can be a little frustrating. Unlike the other family drama playing at the National, Till The Stars Come Down, this is a far less explosive play, and the stakes never feel too high.”
The Arts Desk: **** “A pitch-perfect Lindsay Duncan leads a large and splendid cast in Dodie Smith rediscovery.”
London Theatre.co.uk: ***** “A gorgeous evening that deserves to spread its tentacles further than this limited run. Terence Rattigan has had his well-deserved reappraisal; surely now it’s Dodie Smith’s turn.”
The Reviews Hub: **** “Smith’s writing is both bitingly funny and very tender, never more so than in the character of Dora played magnificently by Lindsay Duncan who devotedly terrorises her brood by sending them off to do “little jobs” every time they try to sit down. It is a wonderfully complex performance, the most contented adult character in the play in many ways but given depth by Smith with several savage attacks on sister Belle (Kate Fahy) whose age and beauty become a point of contention.”
Broadway World: *** “It’s intriguing to explore this programming, as the play isn’t exactly a safe commercial bet or a mainstream piece that people will flock to attend. It’s actually quite lengthy for what it is and ultimately not entirely built for a public too used to streaming services and quick social media content. This said, powering through the unavoidable lulls of the text pays off beautifully: this is a gold mine of dry humour and psychological fun.”
London Unattached: “Despite the inter-war context, there’s a timelessness about the family relationship themes that makes Dear Octopus worth seeing. The dialogue is perceptive and thought-provoking while the plot itself is a classic, if simple, love story. “
Time Out: *** “It’s a period curiosity, basically. But this is a pleasant revival. Emily Burns directs with a lightness of touch and finds moments of charm and comedy. The darker depths of World War before and World War to come are unmined, just implied slightly by a few empty portrait frames hanging above the stairs. I felt by the end as if I had actually been a guest at a slightly boring, ultimately heartwarming family party – complete with some dodgy singing round the piano from granny and an overlong toast. Which is not something you necessarily need to go to the theatre for.”
London Theatre1: *** “Of course, relatively light-hearted stuff like this play need not, and does not, resort to brute force. The set and costumes (Frankie Bradshaw) are appropriate for the era, and the stage transforms wonderfully from front room to nursery to dining room, the Lyttleton theatre’s stage revolve being regularly deployed. The actors are all very convincing, despite a paper-thin plot, and I can’t help thinking that this borderline utopian agreeableness, while very pleasant, doesn’t make for great and gripping theatre.”
Dear Octopus continues to play until the 27th March 2024.