Daily Mail Reviews Brideshead Again

The Daily Mail, which published one of the most positive reviews of the stage production of Brideshead Revisited now touring England (see earlier post), has posted another review. This latest  version is by Robert Gore-Langton, who saw the performance at Bath and is less effusive in his praise.  Unlike many earlier critics, however, he quite likes the protracted deathbed scene at the end:

Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel is one long suck-up to the Catholic aristocracy…In Bryony Lavery’s adaptation for English Touring Theatre, the book is done at a hell of a lick….The protracted death of Lord Marchmain sparks a theological wrangle that surprisingly manages to be dramatic. But the great comic scenes …are not funny enough. Christopher Simpson’s portrait of alcoholic self-neglect as Sebastian is a dose of reality in this syrupy cocktail of nostalgia, snobbery and religion.

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