An Enemy of the People starring Matt Smith – Reviews Round-up

"Matt Smith’s groovy firebrand swings from rebel to conspiracist"

"Rock’n’roll reimagining of Ibsen’s timeless corruption drama brings the audience into direct Question Time-style dialogue with Smith’s idealist revolutionary"

"Matt Smith’s rebel with a cause has a slow-burn intensity in this reimagined rock’n’roll adaptation of Ibsen’s 1882 drama."

"... it should be a well-oiled machine in this English version by Duncan Macmillan but feels strangely subdued and halting in the first, less compelling act."

"A change of tone and tempo comes in the second act, when the audience is invited – even forced – to get involved. It brings intensity, showcases Ibsen’s timelessness and also adapts the play’s moral arguments excellently for our times."

"Not all of it works... But there is more brilliance here to outweigh these elements, not least an ending which is more equivocal and unsettling than Ibsen’s."

"Matt Smith is terrific in a blistering production of An Enemy of the People"

"Contemporary resonances run through Thomas Ostermeier’s staging of Ibsen’s drama at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London"

"'When did ‘facts’ become subjective?' roars Matt Smith... It’s shocking that it still rings so true, surging across the footlights in Duncan Macmillan’s English translation and Thomas Ostermeier’s blistering, modern-dress production."

"... Ostermeier’s staging is less about individual contemporary events and more about a fundamental problem: the repackaging of truth, the damage done to democracy and the critical gap between opinion and action."

"In Ostermeier’s hands, that public meeting becomes critical, with the theatre audience encouraged to react. It’s a brilliant idea"

"... both adaptation and production have flaws: the kiss between Katharina and Hovstad feels tacked on, partly because some characterisation is limited; the pacing feels a bit spongy at the outset and sometimes a lack of nuance grates. But the performances are great, particularly from Zachary Hart as the funny, dopey Billing and Jessica Brown Findlay as the long-suffering Katharina. And Smith is terrific."

"Now in English and starring Matt Smith, Thomas Ostermeier’s legendary Ibsen production is surreal, provocative and very funny"

"Would YOU go fascist for Matt Smith?... it’s certainly something we’re kind of made to contemplate at one point during this deliciously spikey production’s showstopping central scene."

"Ostermeier’s production moves through distinct phases. The cosier first half really mines the comedy in the story"

"It’s also, as I’ve said, extremely droll: Ostermeier and various writers manage to be sincerely provocative with largely funny characters. The lightly absurdist quality means we never really feel like we’re being lectured."

"In a fine cast, it often feels like Smith is happy to keep it low-key, a largely charming stage presence who doesn’t attempt to upstage Hilton's insectoid weirdness, the affably hopeless Saraf or the righteous Findlay. The big exception is his town hall rant, which he delivers superbly, a mix of glorious truth-telling and red-pilled douchiness that’ll leave you wanting to high-five him and slap him in equal measure."

"The second half is hollowed out for a town hall meeting in which Smith — fabulously easy with his virtuosity, as ever — takes to the podium to argue that the political status quo of the world at large is more toxic than the water. It’s impressive and insightful and a bit undergraduate in its taking up of a political cause."

"If this rejig were taking itself too seriously it would be excruciating. But not only does it have a good sense of humour about itself, it is also a perfectly plotted (cheers, Ibsen) encapsulation of the challenge of change."

"Matt Smith gleams with authority – but this ‘modern’ take on Ibsen misses a trick"

"The Crown and Doctor Who star is a natural fit for the role of Dr Stockmann – but this flawed production could use a digital-era upgrade"

"I found Stockmann’s updated castigation of our polluted world bang on the money, speaking to our complicity in climate change and the exhausting “mass personalisation and individualisation of every aspect of our lives”."

"The polite-ish audience participation doesn’t fully mesh with the dramatic need for a gathering witch-hunt, however, and Stockmann’s up-to-speed analysis also doesn’t quite align with Ostermeier’s barely technological depiction of this backwater."

"A play for today, on paper, but the concept could use a digital-era upgrade, and a shot more vigour, to set the world on fire."

"Matt Smith heads a rousing adaptation of Ibsen for a bruised world"

"A terrific Matt Smith stars in a dynamic modern refashioning of An Enemy of the People by director Thomas Ostermeier of the Schaubühne in Berlin (English version by Duncan Macmillan). The production tweaks Ibsen’s feminism and lights up some gloomy corners with humour. It is an urgent but tendentious rendering of an ambivalent play."

"Zachary Hart is outstanding as a gangling turncoat who blocks out unwelcome news with headphones. Smith himself segues finely from steady conviction to righteous anger."

"It was invigorating to hear audience members speaking up – eloquently damning the state of schools, the NHS and sometimes exploding. “Who said “bollocks?” asked Priyanga Burford, moderating with her customary aplomb. Afterwards I felt uneasy that, no one having voiced a view contrary to mine, I was too comfortably part of a concensus. Yet it was the play that had made me question the comfort. Another skewer in a rousing evening."

"Matt Smith’s modish Ibsen revival leaves a political fuse unlit"

"The ‘Doctor Who’ star makes a daring choice for his return to the stage, but German director Thomas Ostermeier’s reimagining of Ibsen’s play about a man who fights to speak out can feel smug and self-congratulatory"

"... if getting angry about politics is pretty timeless, some elements of this production feel a mite dated. German theatre directors including Ostermeier have provided a toybox of ideas for their British counterparts to raid over the past few decades, meaning that this 12-year-old production’s scratchy chalk slogans, paint balloons and smug indie-rock covers between scenes don’t feel as radical as they probably once did."

"There’s no room for real debate or danger. Still, if this isn’t the kind of production that’ll send people out fighting into the night, it’s got a gentler kind of message to impart."

"Matt Smith is strong but this show is not what the doctor ordered"

"Thomas Ostermeier’s production starts well and has great performances, but it descends into tiresome ranting"

"Kudos to Matt Smith: it’s bold of him to choose this unstarry, uneven production of Ibsen’s social critique for his latest return to the stage."

"The casually charismatic Smith and a fine supporting cast can’t stop it falling apart in the second half."

"I believed utterly in these characters, right down to the hum of sexual tension between Katharina and Hovstad. As Stockman’s elder brother Peter, the town mayor (surely the model for the equivalent figure in Jaws), the great Paul Hilton is a study in sour disapproval and sibling resentment."

"Smith’s performance is a nuanced, complex portrayal of a flawed man, and the ensemble around him is equally good. But Ostermeier’s increasingly dominant editorialising slowly flattens all subtlety from the production, only partly redeeming it with a final image of sharp moral ambiguity."

"Surprisingly toothless"

"Matt Smith is arresting in an arid, over-deliberate reimagining of Ibsen from German director Thomas Ostermeier"

"Seen in London in an earlier, German-language incarnation back in 2014, it offers a youthful, left-leaning protagonist, with a revolutionary’s fury with the status quo, and rock-star aspirations. The casting of Matt Smith may have provoked something of a box-office feeding frenzy; the production itself turns out to be surprisingly toothless."

"While the acting sometimes feels as over-deliberate as the concept, Smith has an arresting, tense angularity; also eye-catching are Hilton as his repressed, acidic brother, and Nigel Lindsay as his bluff, prosperous father-in-law, leading a real Alsatian dog (why?) and cheerfully carping about “wokey-cokey liberals” and “intellectuals”. The whole thing is executed with superficial flair. But it feels like an elaborate exercise in preaching to the converted."

"Matt Smith stumbles in agitprop Ibsen"

"Thomas Ostermeier’s sophomoric attempt to drag the Norwegian playwright into the 21st century is so clumsy it might almost be part of some sinister conservative plot to kill off left-wing theatre once and for all."

"Smith turns in a passable performance, although he’s outshone by the ever-reliable Paul Hilton (a memorably vicious Iago at the National not so long ago) who brings a snarl to Stockmann’s establishment-minded brother."

"His ultimate reward is to be cut down by a volley of paintballs. As for the punters’ contribution to the debate, that didn’t rise above the level of a lukewarm edition of Question Time. The big query rattling around in my mind was who would pay £175 or more for a stalls seat just to call for the end of capitalism as we know it. But perhaps that’s the subject for another play."

"Matt Smith can’t save this dreary thump of a play"

"It's hard to sympathise with his self-righteous monomaniac in Thomas Ostermeier's updated Ibsen"

"Ostermeier’s West End debut, an English language version of a show originally conceived in Germany, was thus greatly anticipated, but it disappointingly turns out to be a monodirectional thump of a production that the presence of Matt Smith does nothing to redeem."

"If we think the flat first half is tough going, we are in for a very nasty shock come the second. At a town hall meeting to discuss the baths dilemma, Thomas launches into a juggernaut tirade about the “toxic swamp” of modern life"

"So beaten down is the mood after this that when we return to the actual action it is all but impossible to care about Thomas’s eventual, inevitable fate."

"Feeble, sophomoric and paper-thin: Matt Smith is nothing if not exciting, but he's wasted on this one-star adaptation of An Enemy Of The People"

"Verdict: More likely to make us demand our money back than it is to send us rushing to the barricades."

"Such snarling propaganda is better suited to a student union than the West End, and with most remaining tickets priced at £100-£200, the real swindle is on Smith’s legions of faithful young fans."

"Nor is there any test of Smith’s acting. Placidly sitting through a public character assassination by his brother when things go bad, he loafs about the stage in designer jeans and sweat shirt, muttering about his unimpeachable integrity and getting spattered with paint balls when the town turns against him."