THE GREAT GATSBY Sadler’s Wells Theatre

There have been so many attempts to stage and film Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. None of them has ever succeeded. Last year the whole novel, literally word for word, was read aloud by American actors on stage, an 8-hour endurance test for cast and audience. There were also two mini-musicals on the fringe. Now, opening in London, in the very same week as Baz Luhrmann’s film with Leonardo DiCaprio, is a ballet by David Nixon for Opera North to a collage of Jazz music by Richard Rodney Bennett. It fails, too. But then it is difficult for dance to do justice to a novel which is admired for its prose rather than its plot. The stylized prologue raises hopes which are quickly dashed. The ballet is stretched to two long acts, which means there is a lot of filling in with partying and dance music. What we see on stage is very pretty, and stylish in costumes and sets, but it is all totally superficial. We are never emotionally involved. I never believed I was watching Fitzgerald’s characters. The most successful performance is by Benjamin Mitchell as the cuckolded garage mechanic.