A Dashing Fellow review, New Diorama

It is hugely ambitious to take three short stories written around the 1930s and dramatise them as a single piece. Even more so when the writer is Vladimir Nabokov, he of Lolita. On that basis, it's great that a small production company specialising in Russian work should make a huge leap of faith and create A Dashing Fellow. We have constant movement and pleasing musical interludes in this ninety minute canter through the lives of Russian emigrees arriving in Germany after the Bolshevik revolution, but it's hard to locate the heart of the story. The narratives have no inherent value.

The uniting device is Satan in the guise of a middle-aged woman, a derivative of the MC in Cabaret, who patrols the action with rolling eyes and a camp Teutonic narration. Centre stage is a well-used train carriage built from scaffolding poles, with everyday life happening around it. Characters are led into situations exposing their weaknesses and perversions, but we have no idea if this is for Satan's pleasure, or in readiness for punishment. Confusingly, the one virtuous couple appears as doomed as the rest.

Simon Eves directs a game cast - Luke Courier, Kate Craggs, Edward Cole, Peter Clements, Joel Gorf and Madeleine Knight - but the physical dynamism in Ben Maier's script is not matched by a dramatic dynamism and every character is played larger than life in an attempt to fill that gap. What are we to take away at the end?

In conclusion: Belka gave us the charming A Warsaw Melody, and produced The Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya, currently running at The Wyndhams Theatre. A Dashing Fellow lacks sufficient bite and grace to be more than passably entertaining, but is no doubt an important staging post on the journey of an interesting and growing company.

References
A Dashing Fellow, Tickets

New Diorama Theatre, 15-16 Triton Street, London NW1 3BF.  Production ends 17 May