The Da Vinci Code on stage proves a disappointment

The brilliance of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is that it manages to be both a work of dense erudition and complexity and also a thriller which romps along with genuine pace and menace.

There is little of any of that in the new stage version – little of the excitement which makes the novel such a breathless page-turning thrill ride.

This is The Da Vince Code Made Simple – which is the very last thing you would The Da Vinci Code to be.

Theatre works best when it goes where theatre actually does work best, bringing to life works created and intended for the stage. That’s when it becomes a magical realm where almost anything starts to seem possible.

When it drags an international best-seller off the shelf and somehow tries to distil it down to a couple of hours, simple sets and a limited number of characters, inevitably it sets itself on course for a hiding to nothing.

And that’s when it gets gimmicky as some kind of compensation.

We get all sorts of projections in this production – most illegible. And when we get to the thrilling passages about The Last Supper, the painting is projected onto the stage in a way that is difficult to see.

Bizarrely, the inactive cast members scowl from seats in each corner; and there are random bits of speaking in unison. All really rather strange.

Christopher Harper is excellent as Professor Robert Langdon and Hannah Rose Caton even more impressive as fellow cryptologist Sophie Neveu.

But transferring The Da Vinci Code to the stage is a code no one is going to crack.

The book is top of the premiership; the film is certainly solidly championship; the play is fighting off relegation from league one.

And sadly it feels almost predictable that it would be. But if it makes us all go home and re-read the book then it will have certainly fulfilled a purpose.

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