REVIEW: Rope, Almeida

First performed in 1929 and now brought back to life at the Almeida, PatRick Hamilton's chiller of a play is a character study over anything else, an intricate look at what happens when two undergraduates commit murder, place the body in a chest and spend the evening with the dead man's friends and family. It's dark, it's intriguing and it's a brilliant idea for a revival.

As with Stephen Daldry's An Inspector Calls, Rope suffered from a touch of over-excitable direction from Roger Michell. As a period character study, whether of the behaviour of murderers Granillo and Brandon or of their friends, it worked beautifully, but by bringing in not-so-scary dramatic elements and over-using sound effects (to the point where rain and music drowned out many lines) it lost much of its impact. The comic elements were strong and very much welcome, but tended to swamp the darker moments of the piece.

A lithe Blake Ritson impressed as Wyndham Brandon, bringing out the primary murderer's physicality and mental agility well with his mix of sharp movement and flashing looks. Henry Lloyd-Hughes, too, was appealing in the small role of the bumbling but sweet Kenneth Raglan and paired off well with Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Laila Arden. Unfortunately, Alex Waldmann disappointed as Brandon's compatriot Charles Granillo. As with Waldmann's performance as Laertes in the recent Donmar Hamlet, he overplayed both the comic and dramatic elements of the character, forcing the first and bringing melodrama rather than true emotion to the latter.

Waldmann could learn a lot from Bertie Carvel, whose layered and effective portrayal of troubled First World War veteran Rupert Cadell truly hit the spot. Carvel was entrancing, witty and thought-provoking as the damaged Cadell, whose troubled conscience and observant eye lead him down an increasingly dangerous path, and who provides some of the few moments of real fear to a modern audience. Rope is worth the money simply for Carvel's bravura performance.