Let the Right One In, Royal Court - theatre review

This stage adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel, and the two films it ultimately inspired, is a vivid picture of adolescence and human failings, which contains bursts of nightmarish intensity
Rebecca Benson (Eli) in Let The Right One In, adapted by Jack Thorne @ Royal Court. directed by John Tiffany.
Tristram Kenton
9 April 2014

Let the Right One In presents a chilling vision of what happens to the young people that society fails to nurture. A tender piece that’s also laced with savagery, it is the work of the National Theatre of Scotland, the company that the Royal Court’s newish artistic director Vicky Featherstone ran so adroitly for six years.

Jack Thorne’s adaptation is quite spare and draws on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s original novel as well as the two films that it ultimately inspired (one Swedish and lyrical, one American and comparatively poor). It’s a romance yet also a horror story, and the balletic movement overseen by Steven Hoggett creates an air of dark magic.

The main character is Oskar, a lonely and awkward teenager who is being taunted and abused by his peers at school. In the depths of winter he seems especially vulnerable - and a series of brutal killings in the woods outside his town have thrown the whole community into anxious shock.

When Oskar meets his new neighbour Eli, he is mesmerized by her poise and agility. She tells him they can’t be friends, and soon it is clear why. Although it may take Oskar a while to twig that she’s a vampire, we quickly see the bloody evidence. Nevertheless their relationship blossoms touchingly.

Martin Quinn, making his professional stage debut, captures Oskar’s gawky uncertainty, and Rebecca Benson conveys the curious agelessness and mystery of Eli. Among the other performers it’s Ewan Stewart who stands out, sad and elusive as the murderous Hakan, who may be Eli’s father or mentor or lover (or a creepy combination of these things).

John Tiffany’s production is technically assured. It doesn’t have the sheer haunting power of the film, and there are some grating moments of humour. But there’s plenty to admire, not least a memorably bleak design by Christine Jones and the stunning mix of purity and danger in Ólafur Arnalds’s score. This is a vivid picture of adolescence and human failings, which contains bursts of nightmarish intensity.

Until December 21 (020 7565 5000, royalcourttheatre.com)

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