Summer and Smoke - Press Reviews

Posted on | By London Theatre Direct

SUMMER AND SMOKE - THE PRODUCTION:

‘Adrian Noble’s luminous, sensitive and sharp production.
Beautiful direction and lovely acting by a well-cast company…
highly recommended’ - Independent

‘Subtle, strong, and packed with tantalising contradictions…
Genuinely erotic stuff’ - The Times

‘A production that is never less than absorbing and well performed by everyone’ - Times

‘Superb… Williams is the finest master of the dramatic metaphor since Ibsen’. - Financial Times

‘A soulful encounter of spirit and flesh.
Williams’ play is full of plangent poetic beauty which fully justifies revival’. - The Guardian

‘Powerfully moving… a dramatic knockout’ - The Daily Telegraph

‘Peter McKintosh is the designer of the week…Deirdre Clancy’s costumes and Simon
Lee’s brilliantly evocative musical direction – are as good as any in the West End at the moment’ - Michael Coveney

‘Adrian Noble’s beautiful, absorbing production boasts two scorching
performances which keeps it at a very satisfying simmer’ - Mail on Sunday

SUMMER AND SMOKE - ROSAMUND PIKE AND CHRIS CARMACK:

Miss Pike is magnificent, imperious, brilliant, superb. Her performance is one of
the best things of the West End year. In this show, she’s the tops. - The Daily Mail

The exquisite Pike splendidly partnered by handsome, subtle Chris Carmack…
an expertly judged production - Independent

Scorching performance from Ms Pike and her leading man, Chris Carmack,
projecting a heat that was smokin
Baz Bamigboye - Daily Mail

Rosamund Pike reveals in Alma a deeply affecting blend of pathos, nobility and
eloquence. Beautiful and fragile in looks, she plays the role with riveting focus.
She is perfectly contrasted with the American actor Chris Carmack, with his
fallen- angel charm and his mixture of sensual abandon and painful
embarrassment. - Financial Times

Enthralling…Adrian Noble’s fine production, could not be better cast…
Rosamund Pike is a perfect Alma. - Michael Coveney

Carmack''s powerful and intense performance - Evening Standard

SUMMER AND SMOKE – THE PLAY/TENNESSEE WILLIAMS:

A modern American classic is rediscovered.
In Summer and Smoke Williams wrestles fascinatingly with sex and love.
It makes a fine match. - Evening Standard

Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke is not often performed, but I can’t
understand why. It is an elegy to the cruelty of frustrated love and it show how
sometime the virtuous path can lead to ruin, the ruinous to virtue, and how the two
can fail to collide - Daily Mail