A Room with a View - Belvoir

A Room with a View

A captivating adaptation, elegant direction and a company full of wit and grace. Theatre is in very good hands.

E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View follows Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman whose carefully ordered Edwardian life is unsettled by a trip to Florence. There, surrounded by art, beauty and people who see the world differently, she finds herself drawn to the unconventional and passionate George Emerson. Back in England, she must choose between the security of social convention and the possibility of a life lived on her own terms.

It is tempting to see this as a story about choosing the right man, but its enduring appeal lies in something more interesting: learning to choose for yourself. Forster’s gentle satire of class, propriety and social performance sits alongside a celebration of desire, discovery and the courage to change your mind. And, of course, there is the shadow of the beloved Merchant Ivory film, with its sun-drenched Florence and exquisite period detail. The challenge for any stage adaptation is to find its own theatrical life.

Grace Chapple’s adaptation does just that, with a theatrical wit and a delicious sense of play. There are wonderful set pieces throughout: the swim in the lake, the tennis match and the ride in the cart, to name just three. The production largely maintains a welcome lightness of touch, allowing the comedy, romance and social absurdities to unfold with infectious energy.

The company is a delight, with Hayley McElhinney the gold-plated elder of the ensemble. As Charlotte, she brings a wonderful depth and humanity to a woman caught between her own understanding of the world and the expectations placed upon her. McElhinney has the rare ability to make every moment feel richly inhabited; beneath the comedy, there is a lifetime of experience, compromise and feeling. She is an anchoring presence in a production that knows how to have fun without losing sight of what lies beneath.

Natalie Morris brings warmth to Lucy Honeychurch, while Luke Wiltshire’s George offers a compelling romantic counterpoint. Charles Wu makes Cecil Vyse memorably insufferable, and Kate Atkinson is outrageous fun as Miss Lavish. Tom Conroy as Mr Beebe, Tomas Kantor as Freddy and Patrick Williams as Mr Emerson all contribute to the ensemble’s lively chemistry. The clipped English accents can be slightly disconcerting to the ear, but the company embraces them with such knowing good humour that any initial reservations soon recede.

Zoë Atkinson’s set provides an inventive theatrical framework, complemented by costumes that are, for the most part, a period delight. Period dress can be a challenge at close quarters, and not every detail escapes scrutiny, but the overall effect is generous and evocative.

The question, of course, is whether Lucy is choosing between two men or discovering the freedom to choose her own life. Forster’s quietly radical insistence that a woman’s future should be hers to determine remains central to the story’s enduring appeal. The social constraints may have shifted since Edwardian England, but the pressure to be agreeable, to make “sensible” choices and not to disappoint expectations has hardly disappeared. The adaptation’s romantic exuberance gives Lucy’s awakening plenty of charm, even as the larger question of what it means to live on your own terms lingers beneath the comedy.

Yes, it is super romantic. But what stayed with me was the pleasure of seeing theatre made so well. Grace Chapple’s intelligent adaptation and Hannah Goodwin’s elegant direction combine wit, precision and a lightness of touch that make the whole thing look deceptively easy. It is the sort of production that restores your faith in the possibilities of the stage. Theatre, it seems, is in very good hands. Everyone should go and see it.

Review by Kate Gaul

Image: Brett Boardman