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Did critics hate THE HUNGER GAMES? | Review roundup for the 2025 London stage adaptation
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Creating theatre often represents an extraordinary challenge. Producing shows at this level is something of a massive risk. Sometimes the odds simply aren't in your favor and sometimes it's because the show is bad. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am currently in Brooklyn, New York. I'm here for two weeks seeing as much theatre as possible. Stay tuned for all of the reviews, vlog coverage interviews and more coming from this very exciting trip. I am of course usually based in the UK and while I am here the world does not stop turning and the West End theatre industry has not come to a standstill despite that being incredibly inconsiderate of it because I am not there and one of the most significant things to take place while I have been away is the opening of the Hunger Games on stage, the brand new new live theatrical adaptation of the iconic story since adapted for screen. Written originally of course by Suzanne Collins, the play adaptation written by Conor McPherson and directed by Matthew Dunster, opened earlier this week at the new purpose built Troubadour Theatre in Canary Wharf. And with this being such an anticipated new production, an anticipation that only grew when attention began to swirl around the earliest preview performances, the first of which I was lucky enough to attend and cover here on social media I shared my thoughts. I did not reveal review the show because it was still a developing work in progress, but certainly all eyes were turned towards the Hunger Games and its reviews when it did finally open. I have not yet been back to see the show since the first preview performance, so this is not a full review from me. I do hope to bring you one in the not too distant future, but for now we are going to talk through some of the most high profile reviews that the Hunger Games received and answer the question did the critics hate it? Now if you haven't joined me for one of these before, we're going to be doing a little bit of a review roundup. We are going to read a bunch of different critical responses from various peers in the London critical community. And though I am as of yet not able to share my own review because I haven't seen a version of the show yet worth reviewing, I would encourage you to share all of your thoughts and feelings in the comments section down below. If you have what do you think of the Hunger Games on stage and which of these reviews most aligned with your feelings? Now, if there are any other shows you would like me to create review roundups for, let me know in the comments section down below. But otherwise stay tuned not only for my Hunger Games review, but also for all of my other reviews of the many other openings happening right now in New York or that I will see when I get back to London. I am a busy boy this month and honestly, aren't I always? But for now, let's talk about it. How did the critics find the Hunger Games on stage? So we're going to begin for no particular reason with WatsonStage.com and their review written by WatsonStage Managing Editor and my friend Alex Wood. Scrolling down to the bottom to find out. Yeah, this is a three star review titled Flickers of Brilliance Catch Fire. Get ready for those puns. Suzanne Collins the Hunger Games hardly needs an introduction to bring any unaware theatre goers up to speed. The original novel is set in a dystopian world divided into 12 districts ruled by the decadent capital, where each year two young people are selected to fight to the death in a televised contest. When her younger sister is chosen, Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her place, unwittingly sparking a rebellion that will upend the social order and Katniss own life. Five films and four follow up novels later, it is nothing short of a global phenomenon. Admittedly, only the first installment of that particular story is theatricalized in this play, so we don't actually get as far as, how did Alex put it? The sparking of a rebellion and the upending of a social order. We pretty much just get the game show, he points out. Bringing that kind of sprawling story to the stage is no small feat. The new adaptation comes from Conor McPherson, a writer currently having something of a London moment, what with the Weir having come back to the Harold Pinter Theatre, girl from the north country returning over the summer and the brightening air also at the Old Vic earlier in the year, Alex points out, and I tend to agree, he still feels like a slightly surprising choice for the project. His best work often explores quiet despair and spiritual unrest, like something of a contemporary Irish Eugene o' Neill or Ibsen kind of a vibe, the likes of whom I would also not suggest should be writing adaptations of the Hunger Games, even if they hadn't died years before they got the chance, as Mr. Wood puts it. Not exactly the obvious fit for a blockbuster young adult property that moves with frantic agility from plot beat to plot beat. The result, directed by Matthew Dunster, is a show that often feels caught between two impulses thoughtful character study and full throttle spectacle, and never really satisfyingly landing either. There is something to be said for the Sensation, I think that when we're doing all of the action stuff, you long for us to be able to dig into the character and the emotion of it a little bit more. And when we are just playing the scenes, you're sort of impatient for the spectacle to begin. Hunger Games kind of can't win in that way. But McPherson, the review goes on to say, is clearly fascinated by the weary lives of people living under oppression, trying to scrape together some sense of purpose or even a meal to eat. Many times throughout the play, he pulls the drama back to Katniss's loved ones and families in District 12 plunged into turmoil as she wades through the bloody entertainment. There's a whiff of Girl from the north country in the way he writes about poverty and hope side by side. His version of Katniss's journey from wary survivor to someone who begins to see the political power in her actions and agency is finally observed, even if the script occasionally labors under its own exposition. And there is an awful lot that it has to contend with, and far more than we would usually get in his own work. But enough about the adaptation. Let's talk about the performances. Beginning, of course, with Mia Carragher making her professional debut as Katniss. Which is a hell of a thing to do, I will say. Ahead of us, reading all of these reviews, scrutinizing her performance, I think it's a pretty extraordinary undertaking. And as of the first preview, the emotional performance combined with the physical performance that is being asked of her is. Is vast. It's. It's sort of wild. Mr. Wood calls it quite a statement of arrival. She handles the long stretches of narration with assured poise, but what stands out is her phys. Physical performance. The second act, set in the Hunger Games arena, barely lets up for a second. She's climbing lighting rigs, vaulting onto platforms, darting through clouds of smoke. It's a test of stamina as much as acting, and she comes through it with real conviction. There is a moment that they may or may not have cut where everyone was briefly doing the BLEEP test. For those of you who don't know, a specific form of physical torture implemented in physical education lessons in British schools, perhaps elsewhere around the world, with two beeps that would increasingly get closer together and you had to try and make it for a one end of a large hall to the other before the second BLEEP sounds. And so basically just sprinting backwards and forwards. And that's what they end up doing at one point in this. But that's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of everything that she has to do physically. Her chemistry with Ewan Garrett playing Peter Mellark gives the piece some much needed warmth. Amid all the danger. Garrett has an easy charm that plays nicely against Carragher's guardedness in supporting cast. He calls Joshua Lacey another highlight. He's playing Haymitch, funny, unpredictable and given more to do here than the dishevelled Woody Harrelson screen Tamsin Carroll's Effie trinket is all surface polish and sharp edges, though you rarely glimpse what's behind the capital gloss. Curiously, he says, not hinting at some of the nuance that might come later in the series feels like a missed opportunity here, and I think so many of the creative choices around the notion of what's to come next must inherently feel a little bit puzzled in the face of the decision not to explore that this is a a adaptation of the first part of what we all know by this point is a story that extends through multiple chapters, multiple films, multiple books. We're only doing the first part of it on stage, and the way that the likes of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Stranger Things the First Shadow I dare say not the last time I will mention those in this review roundup. The way they get round it is by adapting an entirely new story critically, one we have not seen before on screen or read before on the page, but also not a part of a larger whole. And I think that is going to amount to one of the Hunger Games more significant problems, although here comes another one. The star casting of John Malkovich as President Snow, presented via low energy pre recorded video feels largely like an unnecessary addition, although he goes on to say that the slimy showman Caesar Flickerman has an unnerving magnetism thanks to StaVros Dimitracki and Macpherson has the smart idea to use Flickerman's role as commentator and presenter to bridge scenes between the arena and the Capitol. I actually thought as of the first preview that his was one of the emerging performances. The one thing that we can imagine hasn't changed since that first preview is the pre recorded performance being given by John Malkovich. Something that I dare say is going to be plenty more discussed. Miriam Buther's set design is predictably impressive. She was the designer of Stranger Things, the First Shadow, among other works. If anything, you wish the show would push its own visual identity a little further. It borrows bits and pieces from the films in costumes, projections and graphic flourishes, but never quite decides whether it wants to embrace or escape their influence. Trinket's outfit, for instance, hint at flamboyance without fully committing to it. She certainly needs another costume change or two, and it's interesting because again, I think the reality that we have seen this story on screen is a really challenging one and one that the show never quite manages to escape out from underneath, nor necessarily tries to. I will move on to a different review, but there's an interesting thing here about the way that the seating works at Troubadour Canary Wharf. Movable seating banks that shift around the action. One moment you're watching something that feels like a gladiatorial traverse, the next a tightly focused coliseum. It's a clever idea that might have felt gimmicky in lesser hands, but here it works, keeping the audience off balance in the right ways. I do agree. I think there's more to be said that perhaps will be said elsewhere about the way that we are characterized as an audience via this coliseum and amphitheater style seating. The fights choreographed by Kevin McCurdy are consistently inventive. The Act 1 training sequence is one of the show's high points, giving a sense of rhythm and danger without ever slipping into repetition. One key death in the second act, among the most devastating in the source material, is handled with real precision, a passage that lands with genuine authenticity. An interesting passing comment here. As Alex points out, there's a fun comparison to be made between spectators in the auditorium and Panem's viewers hooked to their screens. Are we as complicit as they are by indulging in this spectacle? Though? He goes on to say, even rich questions don't stop the lingering frustration that the show doesn't quite decide what it wants. To be caught between introspection and bombast and never allowing the two to support one another. It could easily lose 15 or 20 minutes and feel sharper for it. Mr. Wood, after musing on the relationship between the show and the fans, concludes by saying, this may not be a flawless victory for either McPherson or the franchise, but you can't fault anyone for a lack of ambition by Boost Mobile is now sending experts nationwide to deliver and set up customers new phones. Wait, we're going on tour? We're delivering and setting up customers phones? It's not a tour. Not with that attitude. Introducing store to door switch and get a new device with expert setup and delivery. Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com knock knock. Ooh, who's there? A Boost Mobile expert here to deliver and set up Your all new iPhone 17 Pro. Designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. You call that a knock knock joke? This isn't a joke. Boost Mobile really sends experts to deliver and set up your phone at home or work. Okay, well, it's just that when people say knock knock there's usually a joke to go with it. Like I said, this isn't a joke. So the knock knock was just you knocking? Yeah, that's how doors work. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro delivered and set up by an expert wherever you are. Delivery available for selectable devices purchased@boostmobile.com terms apply. Giving it a go. Let's hop over then. 2 star review written by Clive Davis in the Times. He led with the less positive title welcome to the Humdrum Games. An energetic young cast give it their all. But this adaptation of Suzanne Collins novel at Canary Wharf in London is oddly underpowered. Even John Malkovich phones it in. Oh, didn't even escape the title, did John Malkovich. Matthew Dunster's production often seems closer to that vintage game show the Krypton Factor than a vision of a brutal gladiatorial future. Some words here now about the venue. The in the Round arena designed by Miriam Buther looks impressive when you take your seat, but once the action starts, you soon discover that Dunster and his team struggle to fill it with enough spectacle to justify the steep prices. A quick scan of the website reveals top tickets are going for £200 or more on some nights. And as critics and I think I'm very guilty of this much of the time, it can get very easy to be disconnected from the reality of what shows are asking for in terms of ticket prices. And sometimes that's very important context, especially when you're talking about the delivery of a spectacle factor. Though admittedly, I think a little bit more could be said about the fact that this is a newly built state of the art theater with moving seating banks. And so you've sort of got to take into account that part of the spectacle as well as what's actually happening on the stage. Mia Carragher, the daughter of the former Liverpool and England footballer Jamie I don't know if that's necessary context to her performance as an actress in this play, but we'll carry on is an energetic central presence as Katniss Everdeen, the warrior who fights off rivals in the gory contest. That's the ratings equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing in Panem, the grim state ruled by a foppish elite. But the fact that she's required to narrate much of the story while sprinting here and there is a distinct flaw in a script by the playwright Conor McPherson, which plods through the tale as told in the first film starring Jennifer Lawrence. I did have pretty fast concerns when the narration began, and I think inherently any book book that theatricalizes itself in adaptation by leaning so much into the narration element. I've criticized the Outsiders, the Broadway musical, for the same thing is sort of fundamentally flawed or at the very least A little bit unimaginative in terms of not being able to come up with another way of conveying the same storytelling. Interestingly, more sort of wider criticism on the way the show is being produced here, because Clive frames this next part by saying this. Although John Malkovich's face stares out of some posters for the show, he is present in video form only as the country's ruler, President Snow. Even those brief clips are stilted as if shot in a 10 minute break between his other assignments. And there was something of a quality to them of feeling a little rushed. There was some question of whether or not his eyeline was darting across to read from some sort of a script or a prompter. And just generally the vibe of John Malkovich's appearance felt more as though he was kind of doing us all a favor by deigning to appear even via pre recorded screen. Some description here of the way that the storytelling is done outside of those narration moments. Meanwhile, the fighters rush around wielding their axes, bows and arrows. Recorded music provides an occasional backdrop. The atmospheric forest scenes in the film are conveyed through the use of gantries, while lifts in the floor become burrows for forest creatures. It's not the fault of the actors that the effect is humdrum. There's that word again. My guest, a hardcore Hunger Games fan, was almost as disappointed as. As I was. I'm sort of enjoying the extent to which Clive is expanding on the wider theatrical experience and talking about other people's responses to it beyond just his own. Invoking the fans, talking about ticket prices, talking about the way that the show is being advertised. This all, I think, is ultimately very important, especially for a really commercial theatrical piece such as this that is going to sell potentially very, very well. In spite of its release reviews, the cast does an honourable job of portraying the ravenous genetically engineered creatures that go on the rampage towards the end. Ewan Garrett wins our sympathy as Katniss's comrade Peeta, while Stavros Demetracki camps it up as Caesar Flickerman. The game's compare played in the film by a bewigged Stanley Tucci. Good word, bewigged. And glad to hear Stavros getting singled out once again there. Also glad to hear praise for Mia Carragher's performance. I think she does deserve it. And before a damning two star rating, beneath which is written 150 minutes, which it's worth saying is considerably shorter than the preview version that I saw, there is a final paragraph which reads, while there were reports of chaotic scenes in the foyer at previews, things moved smoothly at the show I attended. There's presumably more than enough of a fan base to keep this venture running and running, but it really needs some genetic engineering of its own. Not a production that Clive Davis seemed particularly taken with and in fact plenty more that could have been said about it, but the prevailing sensation there that he didn't seem to want to waste his time. And you know, sometimes a piece of theatre is so clearly built to exist in the commercial realm and as this sort of hybrid of fan service and just enough original creative innovation that to invite London's finest theatre critics and have them pass judgment on its dramaturgy does seem a little bit moot, especially if it's going to go on to sell really well and extend regardless of what they say, which does seem to be, at least initially, what is happening. Whether the enduring effect of some of these more negative reviews is going to be detrimental to the show's future is hard to say. We will see as we get further down the line. In the meantime, we're going to head over to the Stage newspaper because we have at least one slightly more positive outlier here. A four star review from my friend Holly o' Mahoney for the Stage, who characterized the show as plenty to impress fans of the franchise, which is perhaps the most important thing thing and per my earlier wishes to give a little bit more credit to the moving seating, Holly begins, It's unusual to begin a review marvelling at the auditorium's seating, but how often do seats move before your eyes? The answer to which, of course is that depends if you saw Cinderella at the Gillian Lynn. Entire segments revolve turning an in the round configuration into a traverse one at a theatre built with its inaugural production in mind. The dystopian story set in the fictional country of Panem and carrying a warning about populist authoritarianism. If only we could implement that Somewhere imagines the CIT of a wealthy capital entertaining themselves by watching teenage tributes from impoverished districts fight one another to the death in an annual televised Games ceremony. And correct me if I'm wrong here, because I have very little familiarity with the source material of the Hunger Games beyond anecdotal understanding of the plot. But it's less that they are all impoverished districts to my mind, and more that there is a real class disparity between certain districts. And like district one and two are the wealthier ones down to the higher number districts, which I come from very different financial and class backgrounds. That's the sense I got from the stage play anyway, and Something which is sort of briefly explored but certainly could be more so. Admittedly it is a lot of story to get through. Just the games themselves take up so much time that they sort of prevent us from being able to really find significant cultural and political nuance in the story being told. Saying something similar here, Holly says transporting such a roaming, highly technical story to the stage is ambitious. And in Dunster's production there's some friction between making it theatrical with a largely bare stage leaving detailed world building to the audience's imagination, and a desire to impress with spectacle flames and midair fights. There are no attempts to hide the harnesses that send the story's heroine, Katniss Mia Carragher, in a physically demanding stage debut, as everyone seems to agree, soaring or to make the crane arm that she climbs look like a tree. These moments can seem like watching a behind the scenes video showcasing green screen technology. A very good point. It sort of lacks a little something in the sensation of reality. And it does, yeah, it does have that thing of looking like people filming special effects that haven't yet had the full visual effects editing. But just as it's beginning to sound like a negative review, not worthy of the four star rating, we're going to turn a corner corner. But there's plenty here, she writes, to impress fans of the franchise. And the space is used in its entirety. Set pieces rise up from beneath the arena like stage and props are lowered from above. Ian Dickinson's sound design sends the flutter of birds wings around the auditorium, bringing us closer to the action. Kev McCurdy's fight direction orchestrates gasp worthy duels and Chris Fisher's illusions send arrows flying into the bullseye of their targets, which I did find quite impressive actually. I found myself questioning how exactly that had been achieved. Now, echoing what we heard earlier from what's on stage, Holly writes, with its North American setting and scant text, the script isn't recognisably the work of storytelling maestro Macpherson. Prior knowledge of the plot will smooth over omissions in a production that shows more than it tells. With the on screen character of President Snow an emotionally vacant John Malkovich lending Hollywood prestige. But at what cost, I would ask. Among those with the most lines beyond Katniss, her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta and her adorable follower Rue Aya Augustine, little time is spent getting to know the tributes, and there's not much sense of the loyalties building and dissolving inside and outside the arena. Still, moments such as the dead returning as animals prove just as unsettling under Charlotte Broom's pack like choreography as in the book and film, as is the frivolity of the Capitol personnel. And the whole production is a feat of athleticism from its young cast. Isn't it just with the story unfinished, I left hoping that the venue will one day bring us parts two and three three, which is an interesting question mark in terms of producing strategy and not something that had ever really occurred to me. But I suppose it's easily enough done. If they can manage to mount, you know, the first, most challenging version, then adapting this to a Part two to a Part three, Perhaps at the exact moment that the audience enthusiasm for this stage show begins to dwindle a bit. Little, little bit might be a stroke of genius. It might keep Troubadour Canary Wharf busy for some years. Yet I now additionally wonder whether that had been a version of the plan, and whether the slightly negative, skewing reviews may have affected that decision as well. I don't know. I'd never really occurred to me that they might conceive of adapting the.
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Let's go to Andre Lykowski's review for TimeOut. This has a three star attached to it, he said. This Lavage stage adaptation of the Suzanne's Colin novel is staged in the purpose built Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre and began by asking the big question with adapting the Hunger Games for the stage. Is that is it not totally nuts to adapt the Hunger Games for The stage. A substantial proportion of Suzanne Collins smash 2008 young adult novel is set during the titular games, which is a sort of gladiatorial. The word gladiatorial is getting quite the outing this week. A reality TV contest in which heavily armed teens murder each other until there's only one left left. Historically, this sort of thing is not theatre's strength. Tell that to Shakespeare, although admittedly not on the same scale. A cheeky duel, absolutely, he goes on to say. But a half hour plus non stop combat sequence featuring 24 fighters and multiple sub locations is tricky. And to their credit, director Matthew Dunster and a top notch creative team do a pretty damn good job of finding a way forward. Deploying aerial work, pyro video, square screens, some tightly drilled choreography, the odd song, and a highly mobile, rapidly changing set from Miriam Buther to create a sequence that's coherent and gripping, even if it's hard to really hand on heart say this is as effective a representation as in the beloved Jennifer Lawrence film as much as anything. And this is an interesting point. Without close ups it's tricky to follow who all the minor characters are. And the interesting thing from my perspective is I was by the time we got to the second act, really awaiting the games themselves, perhaps largely because they so foreshadowed in the first act. And that's what all of this was building towards. And it still hadn't happened by the time we arrived at the second, which sort of off balances the structure of the whole thing. It reminds me of musical adaptations like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where we don't go into the factory until after the interval. Or Disney's Aladdin where we only meet the genie right before we go and take a 20 minute break. And trying to fit the entirety of the Hunger Games into the second act is to some extent it seems always going to make them feel a little bit rushed, even if of the context that comes beforehand is very important. I also think it's interesting to reflect on what the most satisfying moments of those games are, because it's not a non stop combat sequence as it has been described here. I understand why he's said that, but one of the most interesting facets of it is all of the moments of pause and isolation and introspection that come in. And amongst those moments of combat and bloodshed, I think it wouldn't be nearly as interesting as it was if it didn't keep pausing and if it wasn't this sort of horrifying war of attrition where Katniss is forced to reckon with her fear and her injury and her despair. Andre strikes a measured turn by saying, but it's solid. And I found it hard not to admire the quixotic but skilled attempt to translate something so action packed to the stage. We've not heard an awful lot about director Matthew Dunster, but there's some words here, he says. Dunster is not a subtle director, also known for his work on 222 A Ghost Story, and in many ways that suits Collins's novel. He picks out the themes of class oppression between the gaudy dandies of the Capitol and dirt poor folk of District 12, from whence heroine Katniss Everdeen hails with day Glow aplomb smartly. The set of the in the Round show staged in the purpose built troubadour Canary Wharf Theater, which is a bit like a fancy school gym, he's not wrong is steeply raked to resemble a sports stadium or the audience seating in a TV studio. Or perhaps, perhaps both. We are implicitly cast as spectators to the Games, with the action sequences lifted and clarified by the slickly amoral host Caesar Flickerman. It never lectures you on its themes, it's just obvious what they are. And it's at least as good on Katniss bemused, dabbling with the world of celebrity as the fighty stuff. This is why I enjoy reading a Timeout review. It's refreshingly down to earth. Nathan Ives Moiba gives a very nice turn as Sinner, Katniss's flamboyant but nurturing stylist. At its best, it finds its groove as a sort of hybrid of the Running man and the Devil Wears Prada. Not a comparison I was anticipating, and I'm really waiting for the person who is going to say a little bit more about what it does to the audience and our relationship to the story by casting us implicitly in that role. The TV audience, the gladiatorial arena. Kind of a vibe I think think what audiences discovered as early as the first preview, or at least in my experience, was that reading the book, watching it on screen versus being in the arena and being made to feel like someone watching it from the capital and delighting in the combat and the death and dread of it all prompts a discernibly different emotion. I'm not sure anyone necessarily was ready for how audiences were would feel when physically brought into the world of the Games. There was that one remark earlier about whether or not we become complicit, but I want someone to really consider that because I think it is impacting the extent to which we're able to enjoy this on stage. Carrying on. Andre says there are problems. Mia Carrick has certainly upped the considerable physical demands of playing Katniss and maybe that's why she got the role. There are no stunt doubles here, but she's somewhat light on the old charisma and she talks in a breathy Marilyn Monroe style accent that is odd bordering on distraction acting. She's not helped by Connor McPherson's adaptation which cast her as both protagonist and narrator. More on that. It's true that there's a lot to explain, but in such an action heavy format, having the lead character constantly offering background on what's going on really undermines the sense of her living in a dangerous moment. And it means that everything else takes a little bit longer as well. Then back to Mr. Malkovich. I wasn't sold on the casting of a pre recorded John Malkovich as the manipulative President Snow. It's disorientating to have a famous American appear at a massive scale on the screens every now and again. And the scenes where are movies? Malkovich is talking to a live actor. Feel a bit of an odd thing to be watching. There is plenty of spectacle here already and I don't feel it needed to go all out to accommodate a weird cameo. With so much criticism of John Malkovich's performance, you have to wonder what their next move is because they could theoretically re record those on screen sequences with a different actor in the role. They don't have to retain him though. You'd wonder if that might be in violation of the terms of his original column contract. And they are all across the London Underground simultaneously promoting the Hunger Games on stage. And John Malkovich appearing on screen in the Hunger Games on stage. Who knew he was such a big draw? Here's some interesting appraisal. Ultimately, the Hunger Games on stage is different to the film and its strongest moments are its most theatrical. The introduction where the inhabitants of sector 12 rise from the floor to the thunderous sound of sweet love for planet Earth is in some ways more thrilling than the fighting. Weird alluring bits of singing and dancing make you wonder if there might not have actually been something in a musical. I thought this. I thought this because. And you know, I may say this when I go and see it again for myself and share my full review. But there was this sense of us not being able to access the emotion of it all and whether or not moments of song, moments of non diegetic song might have pierced the water balloon that is this that very high pressure plot allowing some of the tension of it all to finally be released. In general, he writes, it's superb on evoking the decadent world of the Capitol. A parade of grotesque fops flooding the room says basically everything you need to know about the place in just a few seconds. Then finally some consideration on the show's future. The Hunger Games on stage will stand or fall on how much people like the very long action sequence that takes up most of the second half. I didn't think it was so utterly thrilling that it vindicates the play in and of itself, but I did think Dunster and team do a credible job that won't turn off fans of the book or film. Is that enough? He asks. I wonder if a new story set in the Hunger Games world might not have been a better idea at the end of the day, more of a usp less dependent on a single sequence and giving them the opportunity to write something more malleable for the stage. I think we have to reckon with the fact that Cursed Child would not be as satisfying a book or film. It is better suited to its theatrical nature. Nature. The same with Stranger Things, the First Shadow and another thing that I've observed about both is their most impressive visual sequences are things that if we saw on screen would not be particularly impressive. It's only because they're being achieved live in front of us that they are remarkable. Hunger Games has the difficulty in having to go the other way, take stuff we've already seen on screen and try and replicate it on stage and make that impressive. And I don't know that it ever really manages to do that. Not in the Fiery Chariot moment and not in the Games themselves. I do appreciate, however, the final few sentences here from Andre for timeout. He said, you can be as cynical as you want about big budget stage adaptations of popular IPs, but the fact is a lot of creative talent has been poured into this. It's hardly hack work and it very nearly clicks just a stronger lead away from triumph. And I don't know if that final notion there is meant to invoke Mia Carragher as being one of the play's greatest shortcomings. I think think the biggest issue, if not in the idea and ethos of the whole thing, might be in the adaptation itself by Connor McPherson. We have time, I think, to read through one more review. The Guardian is a three from Arifa Akbar, the Financial Times from Sarah Heming. I can't see because because they want me to pay $45 per month. The Independent is a three star from Alice Saville, Fiona Mountford a two star in I News. Claire Allfrey in the Telegraph gave it a two star as well. Let's go with that one to finish. Let's read the Telegraph here. The theater industry's rapacious obsession with leveraging existing films in the name of new theatrical experiences in inverted commas continues apace with this depressingly bad adaptation of Suzanne Collins blockbuster Young Adult dystopia. It tells the story of the eponymous Hunger games, for which 24 teenagers are picked by the authoritarian capital to fight to the death in a ritualized reality TV spectacle. Worth pointing out, because none of these reviews have as of yet that those 24 teenagers are portrayed on stage by at all times fewer than 24 actors because of the limitations of casting. The original Hunger Games novels are great, the film adaptations even better. Plenty of screen to stage. West End shows, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Stranger Things, the First Shadow amongst among them, have created their own thrilling theatrical language. But director Matthew Dunster and writer Conor McPherson's unexciting production fails to reimagine and revitalize its source material. Moreover, they don't properly critique the queasy subject matter. There is simply never enough sense that we, the audience, are complicit in what we are seeing. And that's the interesting thing of the whole thing, I think. Newcomer Mia Carragher, the daughter of former footballer and Telegraph columnist Jamie another interesting take on her father there that I do think even so remains unnecessary. Acquits herself well as Katniss Everdeen. She does that. I think that's the kind of performance that this expression was coined for acquitting herself. Well, the teenager from District 12 who volunteers as tribute to replace her younger sister. But for someone who is on stage virtually the entire time, it's striking how little she actually has to do. Interesting, yes, there's a lot of panting and running around. In case we hadn't gotten grasped that the action is high stakes. But McPherson's heavily emotive by numbers script rarely allows her to reveal a specific inner life. And given that the story is about children killing each other in the name of TV entertainment, the failure properly to characterize the tributes themselves is almost a moral problem. This, for what it's worth, I think, is one of the reviews that engages the most with the real dramaturgical issue at the heart of adapting this story for the stage. And I think think it cuts right to the heart of the real question that wasn't necessarily asked here, which is does the Hunger Games work on stage? As opposed to could the Hunger Games work on stage? And it's not about the challenges of the fighting or the impressive visual language or what the theater would have to look like or any of those kind of details. I think there is something about the emotional storytelling that isn't necessarily ironically very well suited for this kind of arena. Evidently the brief was to emulate the films as closely as possible given the replica score and abundance of recycled visual motifs. From the Dust bowl aesthetic of District 12 to the funhouse grotesquerie of the Capitol. A staggering two page long list of producers and co producers is proof of the corporate control perhaps being levied or, you know, just the extraordinary amount of money needed to finance the Thing. The Thing and the theatre. The theatre and the restaurant. Yet Dunster's production feels thuddingly perfunctory. Save for a blink and you'll miss it. Moment of suspended action in the rafters. Startlingly little use is made of the hangar like proportions of the Troubadour auditorium. I did nearly miss that moment at first preview and so did several other people around me. Suddenly I realized it had been happening and was about to end. It's a moment when performers are fighting, sort of suspended sideways between different parts of the audience and you suddenly turn around and notice them and go, oh my gosh, they're walking on the wall behind me. The reason why is not entirely clear, but it's visually impressive nonetheless. As long as you actually see it on time. The video projections of fire and forest and occasionally. Here we go. You knew it was coming. The bizarrely blank face of John Malkovich's not remotely sinister President Snow, who only appears virtually, are so disengaged from the action you almost forget to watch them. There's the odd bit of knife throwing and archery, sleight of hand during the the games. Some cool work with lights to depict the poisonous tracker jackers, genetically modified wasps. For those of you who I know are curious and good use of choreographed movement, but precious little tension or jeopardy. The staging, this is interesting, is aptly gladiatorial but fatally lacking in intimacy. In other words, a lot of the combat they get right and the emotion of it all, they get a little wrong. Intriguingly, McPherson admits in a program note that he initially conceived of his script as a conversation taking place around a kitchen table with minimal props, leaving it to the audience's imagination to fill in the gaps. It sounds like a game of Dungeons and Dragons, doesn't it how one wishes that a way could have been found to make this daring idea happen. Instead, we are left with a mediocre halfway house, neither theatrically coherent nor, alas, a patch on the far superior films. And that does strike me as an interesting notion, one that he wanted to explore there, and I think that goes some of the way towards explaining why Conor McPherson was ever attached to this project in the the first place, because for what it's eventually become, he doesn't really make an awful lot of sense for it. I wonder if there's some hybrid between the kind of storytelling that he wanted to deliver and the idea, as Andrei Lakowski pointed out in the Timeout review, perhaps an entirely new and separate Hunger Games story, or even one that covers some of this period but doesn't directly adapt it in the same way. I think the theatrical POV could have been an entirely different one, and the attempt to simply take every single thing that happens in the book and in the film adaptations and find a way to put it on stage is probably a fatal error in the adaptation of this story. But I say probably because I still haven't seen the thing since early previews and to properly judge it for myself, I am going to have to head back, which I plan to do almost as soon as I get back to the uk. Stay tuned for my full thoughts on the Hunger Games and my own personal review. In the meantime, we're sort of getting a sense, you know, people have landed on two stars, three stars, four stars in terms of how they feel about the existence of this and its relationship to its fans. There's an awful lot of crossover in the things that people are saying and we could read another half a dozen reviews that I dare say would say many similar things. Mia Carrick are very physically impressive, impressive. Lots about the state of the art space that is impressing people. Something inherently in the show itself that has ended up feeling a little bit misguided, something about the emotional storytelling that is not coming across, the identity of the audience not fully realized and John Malkovich, a fairly unanimously agreed disappointment. But those have just been a handful of critical reviews and as always I am just as intrigued to hear what you are all think in the comments section. If you have seen the Hunger Games on stage already at the Troubadour Theatre in Canary Wharf, let us all know what you thought of it in the comments section down below. Like I said, stay tuned for my review as well as many other theatrical reviews coming very soon. Thank you so much for listening to this. I hope that you enjoyed. If you did, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel or go follow me on podcast platforms for plenty more theater coverage. And as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe, that the odds are ever in your favour and that you have have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.
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Hear that?
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That'S gone to flames.
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New secrets and lies are coming out.
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This is going to be catastrophic. We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell. They make everything about themselves. I can't. Hopefully this doesn't end in a bloodbath. Watch the Hulu original the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
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