Breakfast at Tiffany’s/ Theatre Royal

To dramatise on stage a much loved enduring film is an ambitious task and in this case a failed one. My theatre companion a schoolteacher but capable theatre director put his finger on it with his words after curtain call “There is big hole in the centre”.  The leading role was played by Georgia May Foote a star of Coronation Street , Emmerdale  and recently Strictly. Sadly her first attempt as theatre fell way short of the mark. In attempting an American accent the result was inaudibility. Comparison will inevitably be made with the glamorous Audrey Hepburn, the photograph of Georgia Foote on the poster and cover of the programme with the back tilted hat, the Givenchy black sleeveless cocktail robe but no long cigarette holder are clearly maximising the enduring appeal of Audrey Hepburn. The film version sanitises the Truman Capote novel which the play does not where Holy Golightly as a prostitute is more stark. The uneasiness in which the play replicated the film was reflected when Georgia  Foote strums a guitar on her bed and sings Moon River. Although t he audience clapped I felt it did not work at all.

Some of the characters did convince in accent and role notably the bartender Joe Bell (Victor McGuore) and Holly’s hillbilly husband Doc (Robert Calvert) and at least you could hear the male lead Fred (Matt Barber). I rather envied Bob Tickler who was fast asleep for most of the first half.

I have referred before  to the commercialisation of mainstream theatre. By having a well-known star in the main role the producer might have thought he was onto a winner but the basic  grammar of diction and acting was  not mastered and my director friend thought that the cast were trying too hard to win over a reluctant audience. They failed.