Autumn
The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford

ALI SMITH’s 2017 Booker Prize short-listed novel was regarded as one of the first post-Brexit works dealing with the ramifications of the previous year’s European Union membership referendum.

Its depiction of an increasingly insular and fearful country, set on erecting fences while petty, pedantic officialdom flourishes has proved remarkably prescient.

Harry McDonald’s timely adaptation of the novel remains essentially true to Smith’s work revelling in the nature of words, but has even broader implications now with nationalistic European movements growing ever stronger and the re-election of Donald Trump, with his alarmingly hostile and isolationist agenda. 

With a light and engagingly whimsical touch, this changing world view is seen over 20 years through the eyes of a maturing Elisabeth and the inspirational relationship with her elderly childhood neighbour, Daniel. 

Charlotte Vickers’ assured and enjoyable production has a critically inquisitive Elisabeth, played with warmth and good humour by Rebecca Banatvala, enthused by Gary Lilburn’s charismatic Daniel and his playful discussions on books, language and art. 

Not quite as effective is Daniel’s final dream-like sequence from his care home bed. Profound elements relating to the cyclical nature of history and his Jewish sister’s wartime arrest in France contend with more contrived moments such as Banatvala donning a wig to become Pauline Boty, a ’60s British pop artist and significant figure for both Daniel and Elisabeth.

Sophie Ward as Elisabeth’s inexplicably detached mother develops but still remains a shallow if appealing depiction compared to the complexity of the main characters, while Nancy Crane’s stereotypical roles as various bureaucratic officials, garners humour while sign-posting the way Smith judges society to be heading towards “the end of dialogue.”

Run ended.