Theatre review: The Exorcist, Theatre Royal, Glasgow

WHAT a load of enjoyable old nonsense is this Bill Kenwright stage version of The Exorcist, playing to packed houses at the Theatre Royal this week as part of a UK tour. Adapted by John Pielmeier from William Peter Blatty’s original novel, the show trades relentlessly on the global fame of William Friedkin’s 1973 film, which made Blatty’s tale of a young teenage girl possessed by a demon one of the most successful horror movies of all time; it even makes a brave effort to reproduce the notorious scene where the film heroine’s head twirls round on her shoulders.

The possessed Regan is played with terrific commitment and skill by Susannah Edgley in The Exorcist

The Exorcist, Theatre Royal, Glasgow ***

The young girl at the heart of the drama, Regan, is played with terrific commitment and skill by Susannah Edgley. The lovely Sophie Ward acts up a storm as her distraught film-actress mother, Tristram Wymark, Paul Nicholas and Ben Caplan work tirelessly as suave film director, exorcist and priest respectively, and Ian McKellen delivers a truly astonishing recorded performance as the voice of the ghastly demon that possesses Regan.

Add a relentlessly creaky and shape-shifting American-gothic set by Anna Fleischle, and spectacular lighting by Philip Gladwell, and you have a thoroughly enjoyable two hours of hokum. In 2019, of course, the kids are marching to save the planet, not masturbating with crucifixes; and we hardly need imaginary horrors like these to tickle our bored imaginations. Yet the early teens are still a time of huge and disturbing change; and in exploring that phenomenon to the horror-movie max, The Exorcist clearly strikes a chord that has not stopped resonating yet.

JOYCE MCMILLAN

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 5-9 Nov, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 12-16 Nov, His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 19-23 Nov