Cool Hand Luke
Donn Pearce/Emma Reeves
Cool Hand Luke
Beneath a scorching Florida sun, Boss Godfrey watches the chain gang. Keeps his eye on Cool Hand Luke. War hero, trouble-maker, inspiration to his fellow inmates. And just the man Boss wants to crush? ... Cool Hand Luke is the hard-hitting story of a true original. He'll play it real cool in the face of brutality. He'll always get back up after a beating. He'll eat fifty eggs in an hour, to win a bet. A man who won't conform no matter what it costs.
2.2 out of 5 based on 9 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Location |
London |
| Venue |
Aldwych Theatre |
| Director |
Andrew Loudon |
| Cast |
Lee Boardman, Lisa Eichhorn, Rob Falconer, Joshua McCord, Nathan Osgood, Tom Silburn, David Sturzacker, Richard Brake, Kenneth Jay, Sandra Marvin, Tania Mathurin, Bret Jones, Michael Cuckson, Julie Rogers Marc Warren |
| From |
September 2011 |
| Until |
January 2012 |
| Box Office |
0870 4000 805 |
| |
Beneath a scorching Florida sun, Boss Godfrey watches the chain gang. Keeps his eye on Cool Hand Luke. War hero, trouble-maker, inspiration to his fellow inmates. And just the man Boss wants to crush? ... Cool Hand Luke is the hard-hitting story of a true original. He'll play it real cool in the face of brutality. He'll always get back up after a beating. He'll eat fifty eggs in an hour, to win a bet. A man who won't conform no matter what it costs.
Reviews
The Times
Libby Purves
"There are staging faults: the work-gang hoeing is glaringly unconvincing compared to the hard realism of the war flashback, and the brutalities too stagey for a generation used to horrid movie realism. Director Andrew Loudon could have found ways round that. But that’s a quibble: it’s a proper play, worth doing. "
04/10/2011
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The Financial Times
Ian Shuttleworth
"This stage Luke, for all Warren’s abilities, is neither seductive nor rascally enough to compel us through the evening. In emotional terms – and to quote the film’s most memorable line, absent from this adaptation – “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” "
04/10/2011
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"[T]he chief innovation of Reeves's adaptation and Andrew Loudon's production is to swathe the action in gospel music from two black choristers complemented by a pair of Salvation Army girls ... The only consequence is to endow the story with a false religiosity and to undermine the idea that Luke's rebelliousness stems from the horrors he witnessed on both sides in wartime."
04/10/2011
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The Independent
Paul Taylor
"The supposedly superior twist to this project is that it goes back to the original 1965 novel by Donn Pearce on which the 1967 movie was based. But it proves to be a manoeuvre that creates more problems than it solves. "
06/10/2011
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"...it lacks real bite, and Warren's star quality doesn't redeem it."
04/10/2011
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The Daily Express
Simon Edge
"The main problem with this brisk, trite reworking is that under Andrew Loudon's direction it lacks any sense of the menace and brutality that Pearce describes so vividly."
04/10/2011
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The Stage
Mark Shenton
"...a clunky, lumpy evening of eggy drama in every sense."
04/10/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"I cannot see any good reason why anyone would want to stump up West End prices to see this second-rate stage version of a film that is readily available on DVD for less than a fiver. "
04/10/2011
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Basset
"What's jaw-dropping about this southern US jail drama – pitting rebel inmate Luke against a brutal regime – is the tediousness of Andrew Loudon's staging, with Marc Warren in the title role."
09/10/2011
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