Moby Dick at Brighton Festival - Review

An inspired booking for Brighton Festival sees the UK premiere of Moby Dick at Theatre Royal Brighton from May 25-27.

The hugely impressive endeavour is visually arresting, fairly loud and a memorable piece of storytelling.

It features a small cast of actors, fifty fantastic puppets and visuals projected onto more dry ice and a theatrical smoke than Led Zeppelin.

The production begins with and atmospheric soundscape which is on the moody side of ominous.

In front of a huge black projection of waves, a small crowd of whalers (some actors, some grim-faced life-sized puppets held from behind by the actors) shuffle onto the stage, all wearing black sou’westers and long waterproofs.

And the tone of the whole production is set with the opening words: "Why do all the living strive to hush all the dead?"The production doesn’t shy from the dark themes Herman Melville’s Moby, not just Ahab’s maniacal and doomed obsession with the white whale, but the horrors of humanity and the conflicts of a tortured soul. Ishmael, the tales narrator, tells us there are ‘Three types of people - The living, the dead and those who go to sea’ and that he had a ‘furious need for destruction’ which led him to a life on the sea.

The language of the show is wonderful and in places close to the prose of the original, and is supported by evocative lighting and a powerful soundtrack which is at times sparing to add to the darkness, and elsewhere full of stirring electric riffs to drive on the story.

Action scenes are portrayed using much smaller models of whaling boats, complete with miniature crewmen, harpooning larger models of whales, which are then skinned before seemingly floating away into the briny depths.

There’s a gorgeous visual scene when the narrative shifts from Ahab to the gloomily-lit below deck where the crew are seen in their hammocks

The slightly grotesque puppets growl, bicker and have remarkably life-like movement before before being serenaded by the song of young crew member Pip.

Unsurprisingly the artistry of the puppets and puppeteers are the real stars of the show, a fearsome and howling-mad Ahab (“The sum of all general rage”) is brought to life, with immaculate co-ordination between puppeteer and voice actor.

The larger-than-life (literally) model moves with fury, hair flies and arms flail as he plots Moby Dick’s demise.

The show races to a thunderous and inevitable climax by way of mermaids, sharks and some extraordinary puppets and memorable depictions of the eponymous leviathan.

Tickets are still available for tonight (Friday May 26) and Saturday go to

https://brightonfestival.org/whats-on/moby-dick-6208/?gclid=CjwKCAjwscGjBhAXEiwAswQqNEu1ySVUIer0a4LqTZs7usKntTOUxCm3tr_oa_2joV2I6n-BoLAwyhoC5CoQAvD_BwE