Fatal Attraction Review
by Phil Willmott on Thursday 3 April 2014, 10:04 am in London Theatre Reviews
If you're looking for a smart and sexy, chic evening of West End theatre Fatal Attraction may well be the show for you.
If you're over thirty you may recall the 1987 film on which it's based which was pretty big news at the time. It grossed millions and helped catapult its leads, Michael Douglas and Glen Close, into the superstar league.
Released just as fear of AIDS was at its height the story of a one night stand that spirals out of control seemed to symbolise the perils of any kind of sex outside the conventional nuclear family.
Feminists were outraged at its demonisation of an emotionally vulnerable, single woman, and the trivialisation of mental health, which saw audiences the world over cheering when a wife gunned down her husband's mistress, was very ugly. But of course it was also possible to switch your brain off and enjoy it as a gripping thriller, as most of us did. However it's the news that the screen writer was unhappy with the shoot-em-up ending and now, after 27 years, wants to give us a more morally ambiguous climax that makes his stage adaptation particularly intriguing.
If you're looking for a smart and sexy, chic evening of West End theatre Fatal Attraction may well be the show for you.
Whether you prefer the new climax, which of course I can't reveal, will probably depend on how well you know the original movie. Most people I imagine will be happy to just sit back and enjoy a creepy, erotic, cautionary tale of modern sex.
It's very glossy. Premiere league director Trevor Nunn makes it all very cinematic, with elegant sliding panels whizzinging around revealing smart urban environments that'll make you long for a glamorous New York lifestyle.
But of course there's a snake in the garden of Eden and a handsome affluent lawyer and a beautiful publishing executive decide to have a forbidden night of passion whilst the guy's wife is away for the weekend. Which of them is the snake? Well, that'll depend on how charitable you feel towards cheeting husbands and women on the trawl for affection what ever the cost.
Anyway, they take the plunge and it's the next morning amidst the awkward collecting up of clothes and cool goodbyes that the first signs of trouble appear. She wants to stay in touch, he doesn't, then she REALLY wants to stay in touch and the gentle negotiations take a shocking turn when it transpires she's cut her wrists. Of course he has to stay and help and of course he has to ring later to find out if she's OK. The trap snaps shut. They're involved and there's no way back. Unhealthy obsessive love fuels the next few hours that see the protagonists battle, she to save her sanity and he to save his family.
Mark Bazeley in the role of the straying husband is suitably handsome, more chiselled than Michael Douglas and at times he resembles an injured hawk, his high flying trajectory, thwarted by a diseased wing.
Natascha McElhone is terrific as his obsessive mistress and succeeds in winning our sympathies in far more scenes than you'd have thought possible.
Natascha McElhone is terrific as his obsessive mistress and succeeds in winning our sympathies in far more scenes than you'd have thought possible.
Kristin Davis from TV's Sex in the City plays the wife and isn't required to do much beyond look happy, then shocked, then jealous, then steely but she delivers all four facial expressions very effectively.
Perhaps the most famous moment from the film is when the beleaguered family return home to discover dad's girlfriend has left the pet rabbit boiling in a pot on the stove.
It's an extraordinary moment that's given full power in this stage version. So much so that there's a note in the programme reassuring us that no real bunnies were harmed. Phew!
Book confident that you'll have plenty to discuss on the way home.