Every teenager should go to see The Spire

How lucky we are to have a theatre of this calibre in what is essentially a small-to-middling market town, even if the cathedral’s presence allows us to call it a city.

I went along last Thursday unable to imagine how Roger Spottiswoode’s adaptation could possibly turn the fantastical world inhabited by William Golding’s protagonist Bishop Jocelin into a coherent narrative without destroying its atmosphere.

To me The Spire seems more like an impressionistic poem at times than a novel. I absolutely love it, but it’s far from an easy read.

So to strip it down to a sequence of events struck me as a tough ask, and I wasn’t at all sure I’d like the result.

But I’m so glad I went. It was as well done as such a thing could be, with Mark Meadows hugely impressive as Dean Jocelin, the architect of the whole seemingly impossible building project, growing madder by the minute in the most poignant way.

The set was dark, sparse and Halloween spooky, swirling with dust, the stone pillars creaking and ‘singing’ under the strain they bore, a sound that haunted Golding’s medieval masons.

It emphasised the immense physical difficulties that were faced by the real cathedral’s builders without descending into melodrama.

You certainly didn’t need to have read the book to be enthralled by this play.

I hope every school for miles around takes busloads of teenagers along to see it, whether or not it’s on some exam syllabus.

It should be required viewing, bringing home to them in an accessible way just what a miraculous monument they have on their doorstep.

And I hope they follow it up with a tower tour to get the real inside story.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here