The Fear of 13 Reviews Round-up – starring Adrien Brody

"Adrien Brody’s soul-baring London debut"

"The Oscar-winning star of The Pianist shines at the Donmar Warehouse as Nick Yarris, the victim of an extraordinary miscarriage of just"

"As Nick Yarris, victim of an extraordinary miscarriage of justice, Brody delivers an intense, soul-baring performance in his London stage debut."

"Can the play improve on a compelling film? Yes, indeed. The American playwright Lindsey Ferrentino — who landed a stage hit earlier this year with the book for the musical adaptation of that quirky French film The Artist — has turned a solo narrative into a richer ensemble piece."

"Brody, sometimes defiant, sometimes vulnerable, is surrounded by a multi-tasking cast who, as warders, lawyers and grifters, hustle back and forth among the audience."

"If the ending is slightly darker than the film’s — we see more of the damage that Yarris’s psyche has sustained — it still contains a hint of the miraculous. Tim Sheader’s tenure as the Donmar’s new artistic director has got off to an exemplary start."

"Adrien Brody’s wrenching portrait of death row injustice is unmissable"

"Based on the appalling true story of 23-year wrongful conviction, this world premiere combines Hollywood glamour and devastating intimacy"

"Timothy Sheader’s first show as the Donmar’s new Artistic Director makes a mighty statement of intent for a tiny theatre recently stripped of ACE funding, with a world premiere that combines Hollywood glamour with a wrenching portrait of the inequities of American justice. It’s unmissable."

"Brody is an actor whose USP relies on a soulful fragility. Yet in a performance that begins small but grows with disarming stealth, Brody makes the character his own. Where the source material prompted viewers to at times question the possible fantastical aspects of Yarris’s version of his own experience, Brody anchors it in absolute doe-eyed sincerity."

"Shards of jagged humour mingle with moments of farce but also exquisite intimacy: when the inmates join in an impromptu a cappella rendition of Just My Imagination, the song is both a redemptive hymn of sweetness and a lament for what has been lost."

"It’s this refusal to sensationalise or exploit the story’s emotive potential that defines both Justin Martin’s faultless production and Brody’s central performance."

"Adrien Brody is sensational in new era for the Donmar Warehouse"

"Ferrentino’s script gallops with innovative charm where it could, quite easily, have trotted along with pedestrian paint-by-numbers storytelling. The result is a harder road to travel but one that reaps much greater rewards."

"Brody is at first inscrutable but gradually lets Yarris unfurl like pages of a long-discarded leather-bound book. He leaps through the decades of the inmate’s life – both before and during Death Row – at one time even playing a nine year-old with heartbreaking fragility."

"Rest assured however, this will go down as one of the best new plays of the year. Sheader couldn’t have kicked off his tenure with a more thrilling premiere."

"Adrien Brody is mesmerically good – it’s a privilege to watch him"

"Oscar winner Adrien Brody, in his London theatre debut, offers a thrillingly charismatic performance as a prisoner on death row who for years has been quietly asserting his innocence."

"Lindsey Ferrentino’s drama, which never explains its elliptical title, is far from your routine prison story, playing as it does with the very idea of narrative as it proceeds."

"Designer Miriam Buether has done thrilling things with the Donmar space, immensely aiding the vivid intimacy of Justin Martin’s production."

"A dynamic five-strong ensemble, which breaks in to occasional melodious fragments of song, plays the other inmates and prison warders, but the focus soon closes in upon the weekly meetings and growing connection between Nick and Jackie."

"This is an actor at the top of his game and it is a privilege to watch him up close in this space as we reflect upon the ultimate fairness, or otherwise, of justice."

"Adrien Brody makes a charismatic UK stage debut as an innocent man on death row in this slickly theatrical docu-drama"

"To be honest it sets off a number of warning bells about excessively worthy celebrity projects: screen star who isn't really a stage actor; inspiring true story; adaptation of non-theatrical source material – shows like this sometimes pop up and feel a bit stiff and clunky, projects rather than plays. But Ferrentino is a proper playwright, Justin Martin – who did the honours for the Jodie Comer smash Prima Facie – is a proper stage director and, yes, Brody proves himself to be a proper stage actor."

"If the play always feels slightly tied to the documentary format, there’s enough raw theatricality to Martin’s staging to overcome this, with the actors intermingling with the front rows of the audience, and the hard bitten, tough-as-nail looking men frequently bursting into disarming snatches of soothing gospel music."

"It’s not Hamlet, it’s not an Olivier-attempt showcase for Brody’s range. But neither is it sitting us down and spooning us preachy medicine. It’s a beautifully theatrical production and a good, charismatic turn from Brody"

"Adrien Brody is spellbinding in death row drama The Fear of 13"

"Now it’s actor Adrien Brody telling his story, making a superb London stage debut in a compelling new play by Lindsey Ferrentino."

"Ferrentino’s drama is partly about listening. Yarris’s story is unique to him, but it also stands for so many others left to rot in a creaking prison service. Justin Martin’s gripping staging makes that tangible — the storytelling here is shared by an excellent ensemble, who play guards, cops and other prisoners, but who also convey the bleak rigidity of life in the penitentiary."

"The play is held back somewhat, however, by its very fidelity to the true story: you sense Ferrentino might have imagined her way further into an invented character. As it is, we don’t get truly close to Yarris. But Brody is brilliant throughout."

"Adrien Brody lacks space to shine in death row drama"

"Oscar winner makes London debut in Lindsey Ferrentino’s busy play that sometimes lacks intensity"

"He [Adrien Brody] is a beguiling presence here but is not given enough space to flex his actorly muscles. Action takes the place of atmosphere. First-person narration, mostly by Yarris, obstructs the buildup of intensity. Nana Mensah, as prison volunteer turned wife, Jackie, narrates her story too but this limited interiority feels functional for delivering the next part of the story."

"Under the direction of Justin Martin, who masterfully directed legal drama Prima Facie, this play tries to squeeze it all in so that it seems like a whistle-stop narrative of events, rather than a poised, potent dramatisation, with fellow inmates rendered rather faceless. Lighthearted and comic moments are inserted into some scenes and they are amusing but diffuse the tone and undercut the medieval brutality of Pennsylvania’s penal system."

"It seems antithetical to the stage to show the dead time of prison life on it but, as engaging as this production is, it could do with slowing things down, pausing longer and deeper on Yarris’s heart and mind."

"Can the play improve on a compelling film? Yes, indeed. The American playwright Lindsey Ferrentino — who landed a stage hit earlier this year with the book for the musical adaptation of that quirky French film The Artist — has turned a solo narrative into a richer ensemble piece."

"Tim Sheader’s tenure as the Donmar’s new artistic director has got off to an exemplary start."

"Brody is mesmerising"

"Adrien Brody is astonishing in this miscarriage of justice docudrama"

"Like Miller’s play, Ferrentino’s is somewhat formulaic, and Martin’s staging is once again remarkable chiefly for its astonishing central performance. But it has an undeniable emotional force, and Brody is mesmerising."

"Dramatically, there’s a flatness and a literalness to the writing, perhaps born of its transition from its screen inspiration; it’s a straightforward retelling without much subtext or theatrical texture. But as Ferrentino delivers pretty much exactly what you’d expect – sadistic prison guards, violence, sexual exploitation – Brody’s Nick gently unfurls."

"Mensah implies a lively mind and a generous heart as Jackie, though Ferrentino’s under-developed characterisation doesn’t give her much to work with"

"Adrien Brody is magnetic in this enjoyable but uneven Death Row drama"

"The Oscar winning star is freewheelingly charismatic in his West End debut"

"In Lindsey Ferrentino’s uneven drama, the star of The Pianist plays Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Death Row in a Pennsylvania prison. Tousled, impossibly lean and charmingly wolfish, Brody surfs each twist and turn of a script that is mostly preoccupied with the stories we tell ourselves as individuals or as a society."

"Brody coaxes us through it all, including a shower scene in his pants that leads to an 11th-hour narrative bombshell and a dawdling epilogue that suggests Ferrentino doesn’t know how to end things."

"Overall, this is an enjoyably splashy, starry start to Tim Sheader’s reign at the Donmar. But the fact you never really know what’s going to happen is not always a positive. Brody is magnetic and engaging, but much of what unfolds seems daft or fantastical."

"Adrien Brody’s Death Row play is too afraid to let the dark in"

"Lindsey Ferrentino’s production tells the true story of Nick Yarris, an innocent man imprisoned for decades, but it rubs the roughest edges off a murderous prison system, smoothing them with humour and sentimentality"

"Hollywood actor Adrien Brody (The Pianist, Succession) is doing time in the intimate confines of the Donmar as this suffering prisoner, giving a powerful performance that doesn’t let this wronged man feel like a straightforward victim."

"Often, this play feels like an exercise in making horrors into something beautiful – or, to put it less positively, like a work that rubs the roughest edges off a murderous prison system, smoothing them with humour and sentimentality."

"Instead, the profound bleakness underlying this story is constantly kept at bay with jokes, soul singing, and the bustling of guards and prisoners coming and going on its busy stage. It’s engrossing and poignant, even if it’s afraid to let the dark in."