Doctor Faustus

Clare Brennan


Like the text itself, this production is a hotchpotch of silliness, crude humour and sublimity. There are two versions of the original Doctor Faustus, handily known as A and B, and nobody is quite sure how much of either is actually by Christopher Marlowe (contemporary of Shakespeare and early victim of knife crime in Deptford). Director Toby Frow has opted for the longer, more knockabout B and fills it with stage trickeries of giant puppets, zombie-like devils (à la Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), a pantomime-boy-style Lucifer (Gwendoline Christie dropping in from the flies) and a Monty Pythonesque papal court (cackling cardinals and self-pleasuring pontiff). Damnation isn't what it used to be, though, and, for much of the time, this tale of the scholar who sold his soul to the devil for 24 years of wishes granted has the spiritual depth of a Doctor Who Christmas special. However, what all these shenanigans build up to is a truly magnificent and profoundly affecting ending when Patrick O'Kane's desperate Faust, confronting death alone, finally appreciates how thoroughly the banalities of evil have eroded his soul.