Amadeus (Theatre Review)

This week, the National Theatre put their production of Amadeus on Youtube. (Until Thursday.) Directed by Michael Longhurst, starring Lucian Msamati as Salieri, Adam Gillen as Mozart and Karla Crome as Constanze. One of the Masters (from Doctor Who, that is), Geoffrey Beevers (aka Crispy!Master), plays the Baron van Swieten, who has more to do in the play than in the movie. Most importantly, this production got around the problem of the play not being able to do what the movie did - i.e. use Mozart's and a bit of Salieri's actual music as soundtrack - by constantly having 20 musicians and six singers on stage along with the cast (sometimes in the background, sometimes prominently displayed) and incorporating the music where appropriate. It doesn't manage purely cinematic transitions like Mozart's mother-in-law to the Queen of Night (not least because the character isn't in the production), and of course the death scene is quite different anyway, but it really contributes a lot, not least because the play's Mozart, Adam Gillen, was, I felt, the one less than stellar actor.

( Spoilers want to channel God )