Review Roundup: THE DAZZLE

Michael Grandage Company and Emily Dobbs Productions opened the UK première of Richard Greenberg's THE DAZZLE at FOUND111, at the site of the old Central St Martins School of Art on Charing Cross Road.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Daisy Bowie-Sell, WhatsOnStage: Scott excels in playing oddballs: there's been Moriarty, Max Denbeigh in Spectre and Paul in Birdland at the Royal Court. Here he's superb as Langley, he seems driven by an off-kilter rhythm or melody that nobody else can hear. He bellows and bursts out his words, playing the pauses and sudden revelations for laughs. But it is Dawson who manages to tap in to both the humour and the tragedy in The Dazzle. As Homer, Dawson is upbeat one minute, frustrated the next. He is constantly let down by his brother but he manages to betray, imperceptibly at times, the immovable but unexplainable fact that he will never be able to part from him. The final scene is poignant, and it is Dawson's work that makes it so.

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: Scott, who is on mesmerising form, captures Langley's capriciousness and instinct for a poetic turn of phrase... Meanwhile, Dawson eloquently suggests the neurotic restlessness of a man hollowed out by his brother's painfully fussy manner... Yet despite the classy performances The Dazzle is frustrating. Greenberg's writing is sometimes witty and sometimes unsettling, with more than a hint of Oscar Wilde in the first half and a strong note of Samuel Beckett in the second.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: The story itself is certainly extraordinary. In the first half, set in 1905, we see Langley Collyer, a talented and capricious pianist, and his brother Homer, a retired lawyer, spasmodically mixing with society. There is even the prospect of Langley marrying Milly Ashmore, a wealthy heiress seeking to escape her hated Fifth Avenue family. But, once the marriage is aborted, the brothers begin their slow retreat from the outside world and, in the second half, eke out their immured existence in a house filled with a mountain of stuff that, historically, included 14 grand pianos, the chassis of a Model T Ford and booby traps to deter intruders.

Jane Shilling, Daily Telegraph: This is a play as finely balanced as any precarious heap of found objects. A single incautious gesture by director or actors could bring the entire thing crashing down into sentimental chaos. Joanna Vanderham plays the challenging part of Milly - essentially an exquisitely dressed plot device - with beautifully flawed composure. Andrew Scott (Moriarty in the BBC's Sherlock) as Langley and David Dawson as Homer give virtuosic performances as the fraternal duo, trapped in a shrinking world of love and madness, in which their essential humanity and sparkling wit retains a heartbreaking clarity, long after all hope of escape is gone.

Natasha Tripney, The Stage: Andrew Scott is one of those actors who knows exactly what tools he has at his disposal and just how to use them. There's a choreographic quality to every gesture, every eked out vowel and arched eyebrow. With the right material, he can be mesmeric.

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