Gatz

Gatz, Noel Coward Theatre, 2012

Cast: Scott Shepherd, Jim Fletcher, Kate Scelsa, Susie Sokol, Lucy Taylor, Gary Wilmes, Aaron Landsman, Laurena Allan, Lindsay Hockaday, Vin Knight, Ben Williams, Mike Ivson, Ross Fletcher.

Writer: F Scott Fitzgerald

Director: John Collins

Some plays really stay with you and this is one of those. The premise is that an office full of bored workers start reading The Great Gatsby to entertain themselves and because they enjoy it so much they keep reading until they finish it. So the play is basically a live reading of the book. I'd never seen anything like it before. It was in four parts: two hours then an interval before another hour and fifteen minutes, then a dinner break before two more parts of an hour and thirty minutes with an interval between them. I'm sure it got a standing ovation at the end, because it absolutely deserved it, but I wonder if it also wasn't partly for ourselves in the audience for getting through it as well. Amazing.

The Great Gatsby is one of those books that people never lose interest in. I've read it a couple of times, seen the film, seen a ballet version of it, and I wonder if I might have seen a play too - I'm sure I'll find the programme at some point if I have. I'm not keen on the book but can't keep away from adaptations.

Judging by the logos on the cover this was part of some cultural programme around the Olympics. We really were a better country that year.