Sorry, but this show just didn't work.
There was no one particular reason but it didn't help that the production seemed completely lost on a stage, and in an auditorium, the size of the Bristol Hippodrome which exacerbated the detachment the audience obviously felt from the characters as portrayed. Well, acttually, the characters as written are pretty hard to care about too but that's a diffferent issue!
Whilst an essentially narrated story works well in a book it can be a very dull thing to watch on stage - and this one was. Every time the pace picked up it was squashed by a change to narration. It is hard to engage with a story when we are treated to it second hand and it made it hard for the characters on stage to gel with each other. The end result was that there were fewer bums on seats for the second half and a lack of audience response to the play as it unfolded.
The exception was Bob, the cat, who did a marvelous job and got a real ooh and an ahh though sadly not a spot in the walk-down!
Joe Bell (Victor) and Robert Calvert (Doc) gave credible performances but apart from that there was little to remember. A good set was flown in and out at an alarming rate but still we didn't get drawn in and the accents may have been authentic but the speech patterns were so repetitive that they quickly became tiring to listen to.
I hope that this production beds in as it tours but at the moment it is not a night to remember.