Jamie Lloyd’s rap-battling version of Edmond Rostand’s romance showed us just what a modern-day adaptation could be with its sleekly devastating originality. Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson do not try to emulate the radical genius of that show in their adaptation. The genius here is in honouring the old rather than radical reinvention.
Their modern-language script distils the spirit of Rostand’s drama, set in the French golden age, albeit in the midst of war. The heart and poetry is all here, and the sincerity too, which sometimes spills into schmaltz (for example, a silently smiling child Cyrano roams through the production to tug at our heart-strings). But it is all underpinned with emotional authenticity and neat, quipping wit.
