REVIEW: TALE OF TWO CITIES at Jack Studio Theatre 19 – 23 May 2026

‘Shows flare and brilliance.’ ★★★ ½

You’ll have the best of times, you’ll have the worst of times – this ambitious adaptation of Dickens’ classic novel for the stage shows flare and brilliance almost as regularly as it stumbles, and though it stops just short of its lofty goals, it achieves so much in the process that you might not mind much.

First the good; the ensemble here (Nikki Claire Durrant, Caroline Edwards, Reece Lewis, Aryan Chavda, Liv O’Connor, Joe Childs and Vince Mathews) is strong and each take on their multi-roles with gusto as they bring dozens of characters to life over a narrative spanning decades, with O’Connor, Matthews and Lewis in particular doing well to add layers to the characters they portray, keeping the story engaging even when it falters most.

Alongside this the design of the show is excellent and lives up to the incredibly high standard that can often be seen in the Jack Studio Theatre, a venue well-known for regularly punching well above its weight – the costumes are elaborate and elegant, and the intelligent use of haze and light often mean that there’s plenty to keep the senses occupied during the more dull or dense scenes of the play.

This dullness is where the show’s flaws start; naturally the journey from novel to play is expected to have some bumps, particularly concerning how hundreds of pages can be condensed into an hour and thirty minutes of performance, and director and adapter Liz Love is to be commended for navigating much of the original work so well. However, there are still a dizzying number of characters and relationships to keep track of, leaving individual scenes featuring highly static and compact dialogue that can be difficult to parse in time for the next scene, with the ending in particular feeling a little bungled and rushed.

Overall, the play ends up feeling both too long and too short. Too long in the sense that we’re often exposed to more threads of the original narrative than feels absolutely necessary for the core that works on stage, and too short since many of these threads  end up under-explored. Either cutting these threads or extending the show and allowing them to fully develop would give the show firmer footing.

Despite this, the show remains a well-crafted and exciting adaptation of a classic that should easily please anyone looking for a night of culture and history, filled with strong performances.

Runs: 19th – 23rd May 2026

Box Office: https://brockleyjack.co.uk/jackstudio-entry/a-tale-of-two-cities/

Creatives:

Written by Charles Dickens

Adapted and Directed by Liz Love

Lighting & Sound Design by James Connor

Costume Designer by Helene Gustavsson

Produced by VandL Productions

Photo credit: Claire Greenan.