Hell is a cold place in Northern Broadsides' new version of Leopold Lewis' melodrama of guilt and retribution that made the reputation of 19th-century actor-manager Sir Henry Irving.
Deborah McAndrew's script places the action in the borderlands of Alsace on a snowbound Christmas Eve, where the inn-keeper Mathias is a staunch pillar of the community and about to marry his beloved daughter to the local policeman. But after a visit to his cousin in another town where a mesmerist is performing, Mathias is no longer quite the man he was: he is haunted by events of another Christmas Eve 15 years earlier, when a money-laden Polish Jew arrived at the inn. The next day the Pole's blood-stained horse was found dead near a local bridge. There is never any doubt about Mathias' guilt - the pleasure is all in seeing it milked. It is done very well in Conrad Nelson's impressive production begins with the sound of blade hitting wood and goes on in much the same way, as the besieged Mathias starts hearing the sleigh bells that sound his own doom.
Done without the simplicity and restraint, which is apparent in both production and script, this could all too easily spill over into the giggles. But this is a canny, cleverly judged piece of work in which the combination of melody and drama (melodrama) melds perfectly so that often it seems as if the band of violin, clarinet and pecrcussion is telling the story with as much clarity as the actors.
The production certainly gains by being staged with the audience on two sides in the atmospheric underground space of the Viaduct, and may lose something when it tours to other venues. But it won't lose the crystal-clear performances and the urgent storytelling that turn this pot-boiler into an affecting and unaffected piece of popular theatre.
·Until tomorrow. Box office: 01422 255266. Then touring.
