'From Morning to Midnight' National Theatre, Lyttleton ****

Once again the National Theatre presents another outstanding piece of pure class. Dennis Kelly's new version of Georg Kaiser's Expressionist play 'From Morning to Midnight explains the interesting story of a bank clerk who with with extreme issues steals a wealthy sum of money from his place of work. The narrative is very clear and concise due to the flow of the characters own personal journey and I thought it particularly interesting to see the bike race scene and how the idea of a large share of cash entices the competitors to push themselves to the ultimate limit to obtain the prize. It makes me think about the pressures of living especially in early 20th century Germany and this relates to how the entire world today has been because of the credit crunch and the idea of being highly wealthy is the only way to be successful. The acting is exceptional here and Adam Godley's portrayal of The Clerk is is wonderful as he captures a man who is pressurised with trying to clothe and feed not only himself but the rest of this family leads him to stoop so low and thieve from his own workplace. I found his movements and vocal delivery to be of the highest quality and as well as I found the acting from the other performers to be of the most professional standard. I must congratulate Charlotte Bevan for her amazing casting decisions for this production that has fluidity and ease running through the entire performance. The direction by Melly Still is of a brilliant standard of finish because she encapsulates the German expressionist movement to contemporary audience and with collaborating with Dennis Kelly to present to play that conveys both Kaiser's original themes and concepts with fresh ideas to successful outcome. Once again the brilliance of Soutra Gilmour's design is extraordinary as she has designed an intriguing German environment on the Lyttelton stage with wonderful and creative detailing especially within all of this scene changes and how the fluidity of how intellectual her concepts were worked beautifully. I do think that she is the set and costume designer of the year and thoroughly deserves an array of awards in 2014. Overall I was I was particularly impressed with this play and I feel it is a production for you all to see. You will not regret it!