Though the sentimental ending goes on a bit, this is a genuine rarity – a show that enthrals all generations without patronising any.Īt the Duke of York’s theatre, London, until 14 May. Laura Rogers is chillingly plausible as the sinister arriviste, whose manipulative charm is countered by the ardent innocence of James Bamford’s stalwart Boy and Nia Towle’s charismatic Lettie, both played straight to the heart. But for adults, Joel Horwood’s adaptation presses home a deeper terror of the violence unleashed in a bereaved family that is just trying to survive. To describe the monsters themselves would be a spoiler – they are astonishing and constantly shapeshifting. The real witch, however, has infiltrated the family, turning every home comfort into an instrument of torture. Cue his introduction to a witchy dynasty of farming women. His dad (Tennant again, swapping melancholy for exasperation) burns the toast, while his younger self squabbles comically with his sister in the bedroom they are forced to share because their reduced circumstances demand a lodger, who promptly kills himself in the family car. The story is simple: a man (Nicolas Tennant) revisits the scene of his first love and the aftermath of his mother’s death, where he finds a family on the edge. It's a deceptively simple tale that feels like escapism. The beauty of Katy Rudd’s production is the way that it manipulates theatre space into a simulacrum of a child’s imagination: doors menacingly multiply, windows open on to enchanted forests, and a pool of spotlight becomes a small but impregnable safe space, on the condition (which can never be taken for granted) that the child is brave and smart enough to resist demons he doesn’t yet recognise. With The Ocean at the End of the Lane, best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman has written his first adult novel in almost a decade.

The ocean at the end of the lane genre