A quarter century has passed since the RSC struck gold with Nicholas Nickleby. But, although Ken Campbell jokily suggested it might become the Royal Dickens Company, it only now returns to the same Victorian source with Nick Ormerod and Declan Donnellan's version of this late masterpiece. As a piece of narrative theatre, it is commendably gripping: what one misses is the spendthrift eccentricity of Dickens' genius.
This is certainly no mere scissors-and-paste version of the novel. As we follow Pip's transition from orphaned boy of the Kent marshes to blacksmith's apprentice to would-be gentleman, we get something of the book's guilt-haunted flavour. Dickens' narrative is shared out among a choric ensemble. Physical theatre is skilfully used so that when the boy Pip says "everything seemed to be rushing at me" he is pursued by a five-barred gate. And by the end, in learning grace and charity towards others, you feel Pip has experienced moral redemption.
The architecture of the book is all there. And, although scenes rush by in pell-mell haste, big and small moments are well caught. Pip's reunion with Magwitch, in his Temple chambers moves from cold-hearted diffidence to genuine spiritual awakening. And Donnellan's Cheek by Jowl experience is expertly used so that a Richmond ball, Epsom races or a night journey down the Thames are summoned up with lightning economy.
When there is much to admire, it may seem churlish to complain of what is lost. But no adaptation can ever catch Dickens' throwaway brilliance. And, even with incorporated narration, you miss Pip's early, sensitive self-awareness: at one point he tells us that "within myself I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice".
In the end, there is no substitute for the private contract between author and reader. What you gain is the vivid embodiment of character. Pip's transition from boyhood to manhood is finely done with the young Harry Davies suddenly turning into the tall, gawky, lantern-jawed Samuel Roukin. Other notable successes include Brian Doherty as a touchingly loyal Joe Gargery, Richard Bremmer as a cadaverous, legally precise Jaggers and Roger Sloman as a Magwitch who moves easily from menace to philanthropy.
Sian Phillips also captures the bony, stony decrepit beauty of Miss Havisham and Neve McIntosh has just the right porcelain countenance and refrigerated emotion as Estella. It is an accomplished, well-choreographed and, even at three hours, swift-moving evening. But, like all adaptations of great books, it can never be more than a temporary substitute for the genuine article.
· Until February 4. Box office: 0870 609 1110
