Yes, it’s almost four hours long and features a relentless diet of sexual violence and graphic self-harm. But international maestro Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s controversial bestseller is a superb piece of theatre with a towering central performance from James Norton.
The strapping, handsome star of Grantchester and Happy Valley transforms himself into Jude, a New York lawyer physically and emotionally maimed by cruelty. Though loved unconditionally by his friends, Jude can’t escape the self-loathing inculcated by those who preyed on him from infancy: monks in the monastery where he was a foundling, foster parents, care home staff, doctors, a later-life boyfriend who turns out to be a sadistic monster.
