Emlyn Williams’s 1938 play The Corn is Green – about a teacher who makes it her mission to educate the children in a poor mining village in north Wales, and helps one of the students win a scholarship to Oxford – is a defiantly old-fashioned piece, said Sarah Crompton on What’s On Stage. It’s not been seen in London since 1985, making this powerful, “pitch perfect” production at the National feel “more like a resuscitation” than a revival.
Director Dominic Cooke’s “inspired intervention” has been to turn the semiautobiographical work into a memory play, with Williams “himself” appearing on stage to read the directions and character descriptions. With some of the sentiment stripped away by virtue of this simple device, the play becomes a “paean to the power of imagination itself”.
Cooke’s “non-naturalistic approach” is brilliantly successful, agreed Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. There’s clever use of design: the stage starts off bare, but the sets become more realistic as Miss Moffat’s school becomes a reality. Cooke makes wonderful use of music, with a Welsh chorus of “coal-blackened, cloth-capped” miners.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
And the acting is sensational. “I can’t see anything other than A*s being bestowed” on Nicola Walker’s “unmissable” performance in the lead role. Iwan Davies as Evans, her star pupil, is also excellent, as are Rufus Wright as the “proudly philistine” local squire, and Saffron Coomber as a disaffected local teenager.
Some viewers may feel that a moderate play has been flattered by a first-rate production, said Clive Davis in The Times. I can’t imagine that the “neatly packaged ending”, for instance, would “get through a script conference at Call the Midwife”. But I enjoyed it.
This is definitely “comfort viewing” rather than social critique, and it is “laced with sentimentality and tweeness”, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Yet it is “undeniably artful, affecting and hugely entertaining”. Our hearts “soar and melt as the gifted Evans navigates his way towards a happy ending, and there are lovely, warm laughs along the way”.
National Theatre, London SE1. Until 11 June
-
Switzerland could vote to cap its populationUnder the Radar Swiss People’s Party proposes referendum on radical anti-immigration measure to limit residents to 10 million
-
Political cartoons for February 15Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include political ventriloquism, Europe in the middle, and more
-
The broken water companies failing England and WalesExplainer With rising bills, deteriorating river health and a lack of investment, regulators face an uphill battle to stabilise the industry
-
A thrilling foodie city in northern JapanThe Week Recommends The food scene here is ‘unspoilt’ and ‘fun’
-
Tourangelle-style pork with prunes recipeThe Week Recommends This traditional, rustic dish is a French classic
-
Samurai: a ‘blockbuster’ display of Japan’s legendary warriorsThe Week Recommends British Museum show offers a ‘scintillating journey’ through ‘a world of gore, power and artistic beauty’
-
BMW iX3: a ‘revolution’ for the German car brandThe Week Recommends The electric SUV promises a ‘great balance between ride comfort and driving fun’
-
Arcadia: Tom Stoppard’s ‘masterpiece’ makes a ‘triumphant’ returnThe Week Recommends Carrie Cracknell’s revival at the Old Vic ‘grips like a thriller’
-
My Father’s Shadow: a ‘magically nimble’ love letter to LagosThe Week Recommends Akinola Davies Jr’s touching and ‘tender’ tale of two brothers in 1990s Nigeria
-
Send Help: Sam Raimi’s ‘compelling’ plane-crash survival thrillerThe Week Recommends Rachel McAdams stars as an office worker who gets stranded on a desert island with her boss
-
Book reviews: ‘Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind’ and ‘Football’Feature A right-wing pundit’s transformations and a closer look at one of America’s favorite sports
