DAN Brown’s 2003 mystery thriller novel The Da Vinci Code is a worldwide best seller – 80 million copies were sold in the first six years – as well as the cause of international controversy, criticised as a historically and scientifically inaccurate attack on the Catholic church. It was filmed in 2006, again delighting audiences and taking £760 million at the box office.
Since then there have been adaptations for the stage, the most recent tour in our region coming to Bath in 2022. The same adaptors, Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, are behind the new co-production by Salisbury Playhouse and Colchester Mercury theatres, on in Salisbury until 3rd May. Chelsea Walker’s production, and eye-popping work by designer Alys Whitehead and lighting designer Ryan Day, have transformed the Playhouse into a versatile, hi-tech vista that transforms from Parisian museums to trains, planes and churches, but doesn’t lose the intense intimacy of an acolyte’s cell or the claustrophobia of imprisonment.
What you think of the story is a question of taste. The now multi-millionaire writer doesn’t hide his influences, and for a seasoned reviewer it is impossible not to think back to The 39 Steps, The Name of the Rose, countless murder mysteries using exotic locations. In these days of flexible truth and facts-by-choice, how you view the religious premise (that Jesus and Mary Magdalen were married and had children, whose blood line continues into the 21st century and will presumably soon have an Ancestry.com tree of their own) will depend on your own beliefs.
This production is more about the thriller element, and it encapsulates the energy, action and tension much more convincingly than its predecessor. The visually exciting technical gizmos frame the story, rather than taking over, leaving the excellent cast to bring Brown’s characters to life. Joe Bannister’s nervy but brilliant academic Robert Langdon and Georgia-Mae Myers’s French forensic cryptologist keep the tension high, and Joe Pitts’ much-more-subtle-than-usual Silas never unbalances the journey. Sherry Baines brings calm in all three of her roles.
Most of the people who go to see The Da Vinci Code on stage will already know the story. This cleverly updated version adds thrills and (literally) brilliant stagecraft to a winning tale of derring do, sinister plots and age-old power struggles, as well as providing some reliable insights, and some questionable truths.
GP-W