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2012
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London,
Henry Hitchings's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Andrew Loudon.
Cast: Prunella Scales, James Beddard, Sarah Edwardson, Amanda Symonds, Kacey Ainsworth, Daniel Llewelyn-Williams, Sion Tudor Owen
Description: Emma Reeves's adaptation of Nina Bawden's best-selling book about two children evacuated to the countryside during the Second World War.
Trains: Tube: Piccadilly Circus 
Phone: 0870890 1101
Website: www.nimaxtheatres.com
Polished: Sarah Edwardson and Prunella Scales in Carrie’s War, based on the book by Nina Bawden
Carrie's War has to rank as one of the best books for children published in the last 50 years, and Emma Reeves’s affectionate adaptation of Nina Bawden’s 1973 novel will appeal to those who grew up with the book as well as to anyone seeking family-friendly entertainment.
The main characters are Carrie Willow (a 12-year-old in the novel) and her brother Nick, who, during the Second World War, are evacuated from London to an austere Welsh mining community.
They are billeted with crotchety shopkeeper Mr Evans and his timid younger sister Lou, but soon find themselves drawn towards the warmer environment of Druid’s Bottom, the farmhouse belonging to the Evanses’ older sister, the elusive and moribund Mrs Gotobed (a spectral Prunella Scales).
There they are reunited with fellow evacuee Albert Sandwich, as well as encountering the disabled Mr Johnny and Mrs Gotobed’s housekeeper Hepzibah Green, a spellbinding woman who is rumoured to be a witch.
Alternating between the two households, Carrie learns some uncomfortable lessons about adult domestic life.
Instead of romanticising family, the play quietly suggests some of its more perplexing intricacies, along with the tensions and imperfections of becoming (and indeed being) a grown-up.
Events are bookended by two scenes in which the mature Carrie, returning to Wales, reflects on the past and the emotions she associates with it.
The shifts in time are neatly handled, and Andrew Loudon’s production is assured in all its details.
The setting is evoked through Welsh-language hymns, and the wartime atmosphere by means of period radio broadcasts.
Edward Lipscomb’s clear design contrasts the interiors of the two houses, which sandwich a symbolically scraggly parcel of Welsh countryside.
Both versions of Carrie are sweetly played by the versatile Sarah Edwardson, and there is a nicely measured performance by John Heffernan as Albert, with whom she develops an edgily intimate relationship.
As the tubthumping miser Evans, the excellent Siôn Tudor Owen resembles an extravagantly bearded Omid Djalili, while Kacey Ainsworth is touching as Lou, and there’s well-judged work by James Joyce, playing both the young Carrie’s brother and the mature Carrie’s son.
The adaptation could perhaps have done with souping up the more sinister aspects of Carrie’s Welsh experience — the ghostly breathing she claims to hear, the menace of the “screaming skull” that’s kept in Mrs Gotobed’s library — but this dramatic version of Bawden’s modern classic is wholesome, imaginative and polished.
Until 12 September. Information 020 7432 4220
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
