Rain Man's stage transformation triumphs
The 1980s film, Rain Man, was such a huge success, starring Hollywood legends Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman that the thought of it as a stage play was intriguing.
How on earth could it translate from the big screen.
I needn't have worried. Bill Kenwright's Classic Screen to Stage Company's Rain Man at Theatr Clwyd, Mold, is spellbindingly brilliant.
It tells the story of two brothers, Charlie and Raymond Babbit, who meet up as adults after the death of their father.
Austistic Raymond lives in a hospital, sent there by his father when Charlie was just four. Charlie did not even know he had a brother.
As everyone who has seen the Cruise/Hoffman film know, Charlie sees his brother as his ticket out of financial ruin.
Where the play succeeds is in concentrating on the pair's relationship. The stripped down version of Rain Man proves how powerful and poignat the screenplay dialogue was and still is.
Soap star and Dancing on Ice runner up Chris Fountain is excellent as Charlie Babbitt, a hard- hearted money driven businessman whose brick wall that he has put up around his feelings is chipped at by his brother. It is easy to see why he won a best soap actor award for his performances on screen.
With Paul Nicholls unable to play Raymond because of illness, Adam Lilley stepped up and gave the performance of the evening.
His portrayal of an autistic, frightened man, with incredible talents, was masterful, from the way he spoke to the whole manor in which he held his body.
Yes, there were hints of Hoffman's Rainman, but mostly the audience saw a raw exposed, Raymond Babbitt.
When the pair spoke the best known quotes from the film they brought a deeper nuance to them.
They made me laugh - and they certainly made me cry.
Mostly they made me so grateful that our understanding of autism is so much better today than in the 1980s.
SA
