Reviews
The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"This stinging, zinging play would be a hit without Knightley. With her, it becomes unmissable."
17/12/2009
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The Stage
Jeremy Austin
"There’s only one thing you want to know about this revival ... and that’s can Keira Knightley act on stage? And the answer? Aside from a voice that is almost as thin as she, yes, she can… Lewis doesn’t do enough to make Alceste the anti-hero he should be."
18/12/2009
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The Times
Benedict Nightingale
"In his avidity to update, Crimp sometimes diminishes Molière… Yet Alceste himself does seem the ambiguous figure he should be. He’s paranoid, self-righteous but also correct about a Britain in danger of sinking giggling into the sea, taking Knightley’s pretty Hollywood star with it. Neither moved me. I didn’t care too much about either’s fate. But they did keep me engrossed for two hours."
18/12/2009
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"Crimp’s rhyming version is sometimes very sharp, poking fun at plenty of juicy targets. Yet the language doesn’t make for fluency. In places it clunks… The characters have insufficient chemistry; there’s a lack of dynamism and spark."
18/12/2009
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"Knightley brings to the role fine, sculpted features, palpable intelligence and a nice mix of faux-innocence and flirtiness. Even if she doesn't always know what to do with her hands, she gives a perfectly creditable performance. My main doubt concerns the continuing validity of Crimp's modern-dress Molière, first seen in 1996."
18/12/2009
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
"[Crimp's adaptation is written in] in tremendously dextrous, fluent verse. Which is where you see the difference between an actor and a star. When Damian Lewis, the bilious anti-hero – or truth-telling hero – speaks, he makes you wonder why more plays aren't written in verse... Knightley is crisp and even – and she isn't meant to be deep – but she's too careful with her speech to be really funny."
20/12/2009
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The Daily Mail
Quentin Letts
"Keira Knightley ... proves little better than adequate. Her arrival on the West End in an interesting (but intellectually disingenuous) treatment of Moliere’s Le Misanthrope is, well, on the dull side. She has all the charisma of a serviceable goldfish."
18/12/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"To be blunt, Thea Sharrock's production is merely so-so. I would say "comme ci, comme ça", only it's not quite "comme" anything. Too few of the characters ring true... Damian Lewis is, in the end, the biggest disappointment."
20/12/2009
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Time Out
Caroline McGinn
"The problem is, [Knightley] just isn't funny. And it's a problem shared by the whole of Thea Sharrock's flat, unevenly cast production. The comedy in Molière's satire on hypocrisy doesn't make it through into Martin Crimp's disdainful update."
23/12/2009
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