A Superb adaptation from Eastern Angles
Posted on 11th September 2026
This new adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s haunting 1953 novel has been previously adapted for film, television, radio, the stage and even an opera, so it takes considerable nerve to have yet another go it at. What distinguishes and therefore legitimises Ben Musgrave’s adaptation of The Go-Between from many, if not all, of the previous attempts is how closely he has adhered to the source text.
The play centres, as does the novel, on Leo Colston’s discovery of his diary, written when he was thirteen years old. Audaciously, the production has Howard Saddler play Leo as both the young boy and the older man. It’s a bold strategy, but pays off handsomely, allowing the audience to understand the time shifts that take place within the play without cluttering the narrative with exposition. This only works, because Saddler was so adept at morphing from one to the other, relying on no more than facial expressions of youth and the lower register of an older man. This was acting of the highest order.
The character of Leo is undoubtedly at the centre of things – shuttling back and forth with secret messages in a way that feels like an exciting adventure – but orbiting around him is a cast that provided rock solid support. This helps the audience understand that we are experiencing the unreliable memories of a boy besotted with Marian Maudsley. Increasingly manipulative as her secret affair unravels, Hilary Greatorex’s selfish, truculent Marian quickly dispelled memories of a soft focus Julie Christie. Poor Leo sees none of this, much as he fails understand what spooning is, as Jack Solloway’s Ted painfully, but touchingly, fails to explain. Perhaps most heart-breaking of all, is Leo’s failure to see Jake Ashton-Nelson’s Trimmngham – damaged both mentally and physically by professional soldiering – for the kind, sensitive man he is.
There were, of course, significant departures from the novel. It was telling that Musgrave was comfortable have Marian shock us with explicit profanity you won’t find in the novel, yet baulked at the specific anti-Semitic word that was. My only significant reservation, however, was the use of overtly heightened, theatrical moments. Sophie Crawford is a fine singer, but did those musical inteludes add much? Did the chorus’s stylised movement? The company has been performing outside so I wonder if director Jake Smith felt it needed big moments. If so, the company should have had more confidence in the text, which was economical, succinct and frequently moving.