After a cracking start with an incisive production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the new artistic regime at Bristol falters with this uninspired stage version of Dickens's novel. Like all unsatisfactory page-to-stage adaptations, it offers few reasons to be in the theatre rather than home reading the book. Like an exam crib sheet it is no substitute for reading the novel, only for knowing the story.
With its emphasis on the psychological and an attempt to see the action through a child's eyes, David Farr's adaptation takes a potentially interesting stance, but one that is only fitfully realised in Gordon Anderson's production. There are some terrific scenes, including a Christmas dinner in which the greed of the adults becomes so magnified that they appear to young Pip like towering giants, escapees from your worst nightmares.
Too often, though, good expressive theatrical ideas are clumsily realised - the puppetry at the beginning is badly handled, as is the arrest at the end - and frequently the production falls back on dry ice for atmosphere rather than creating its own sense of a shadow stalking the psyche. Even the designs of Dick Bird, generally the most delicate of visual magicians, here often seem too busy and cumbersome. The evening looks as if it has had more money than sense flung at it.
The second half is a distinct improvement on the first, largely because Pip's inner life becomes more vividly realised in his relationships with Joe, Estella and Miss Havisham - whose smoky demise is another of the evening's disappointments. But this podgy Pip is so unprepossessing that it is hard to engage with his journey to becoming a nicer human being who embraces his surprising benefactor. The strain of squeezing 500 pages into 130 minutes of stage-time starts to take its toll as the evening steams noisily to its conclusion.
· Until May 3. Box office: 0117-987 7877.
