The Curious Incident of the Canine within the Evening-Time assessment – a enjoyable and creative sensory assault | Theatre

The most alarming second in Mark Haddon’s younger grownup novel is when Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old on the autism spectrum, flees his Swindon house for London. After a dangerous prepare journey, he arrives at Paddington station and is overwhelmed. The e book’s textual content turns into a barrage of fonts and sort sizes to precise the data overload: bulletins, store indicators and adverts all shouting for his consideration.

That sense of cacophony, a sensory assault of merchandise, folks and locations, characterises Ned Bennett’s formidable new staging of the Simon Stephens adaptation for Birmingham Rep and Melting Pot. Eleanor Bull’s naked stage, an outsize studio in white, alternates between clear geometric strains, such because the row of pastel-coloured homes that type a picture-book road, and extra detailed high-definition projections.

Hayley Egan’s wonderful video design lays out on a regular basis objects – wrench, tampon, wood spoon – for cautious examine as if in a Dorling Kindersley illustrated hardback. It makes the acquainted appear unusual and demanding. The busy percussive rating by Giles Thomas solely presents extra to course of, whereas a multitasking ensemble drift out and in, surreal and playful, law enforcement officials one minute, tumblers the subsequent. There is far to soak up, a lot to make sense of.

At the susceptible centre, a gender-swapped Chris (Alex Keenan) will get to Paddington and is plunged right into a storm of bouncing balls – all yellow, her hated color, all bearing promoting slogans and all attempting to knock her off track. It is a intelligent theatrical illustration of Haddon’s literary thought: Chris v an unfathomable world. To make it on to a tube prepare, she has to grasp a skipping rope, as if navigating the town have been like making it via an journey playground.

Elbows excessive, head tilted, Keenan captures Chris’s mixture of bewilderment and cheeriness. She is puzzled by human interactions, sure in her love of maths and science. In a high-energy skilled debut, she charms together with her enthusiasm sufficient to hold us via the distressing instances when Chris turns inwards or lashes out as details and feelings change into an excessive amount of to course of.

Fun and creative, Bennett’s staging has the dreamlike high quality of one thing created earlier than our eyes. Sex, dying and infidelity are dealt with with matter-of-fact sensitivity as we cheer Chris for triumphing within the face of adversity.