“Could I return to life? Could I be reborn?” So cries John Rokesmith (Tom Mothersdale) to the audience of London Tide and delivers an intriguing plot reversal. Which would be fine were it not for the fact that this is the very first sign of tension all night and it’s in the final speech of the first half, approximately one and a half hours after the start.
With its Lambeth setting and a central role for the river Thames which also conveniently flows past the National Theatre, Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend must have felt like a cunning novel to stage.
