Notes from a Small Island review

Although American author Bill Bryson had already published several books before the end of the 20th century, it was his autobiographical Notes from a Small Island that catapulted him into the British consciousness in 1996. It helps, of course, that Bryson’s book was a love letter to the United Kingdom, detailing his own experience of visiting in 1973 and witnessing first-hand the peculiarities of everyday life in a sovereign state that was undergoing huge cultural changes.

The joy of Bryson’s book is in the fine, personal detail. It is not so much the rolling hills of Yorkshire or the granite city of Aberdeen that he extols, but the resilience and quirkiness of the natives. Arriving in Dover in the 1970s, he encounters a boarding house that makes Fawlty Towers seem like a documentary. He is fascinated by London and eventually works there, witnessing the rise of Rupert Murdoch and the print workers’ strike that precipitated Bryson’s move to Yorkshire.

With more than 80 characters and incorporating almost as many cities, Tim Whitnall’s adaptation was always going to be a hugely ambitious project. Yet it seems perfectly suited to the talents of artistic director Paul Hart and the team at the Watermill, whose strengths are firmly rooted in community and theatrical invention. Whitnall may truncate Bryson’s original travelogue but he does manage to capture the spirit of the novel, while Hart and his creative team supply the magic.

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