I haven’t seen Apocalypse Now, and I haven’t read Heart of Darkness. Although I did see a Fringe show called One Man Apocalypse Now, it’s fair to say my knowledge is limited. What I do know is that it portrays the horrors of war, the disturbing, haunting truth of it all. Coming into this new adaption, I was expecting something similarly harrowing, which is not quite what I got.

Heart of Darkness is a modern retelling of Joseph Conrad’s novel: a private detective named Marlowe is hired to journey through war-torn Europe to reach England, where she must find and deal with the mysterious Kurtz. Breaking up the main story are re-enactments of the devising process for the show, in which the group look at the issues with the novel in the 21^st Century, and how adapting it may be important for today’s audiences.

From a technical standpoint this is a very exciting show. By filming most of the on stage action and using green screen to show the environment, the entire piece has a very cinematic feel. The comic style backdrops are evocative of Frank Miller’s Sin City, and given that photo-realism in live green screen would been near impossible to achieve, this style was the right choice. It makes everything on the screens loud and vibrant.

Although the ensemble performs well together, and everything is slick and well-rehearsed, the dilemma is the way the story is told. While I love their thoughtful adaptions to Conrad’s story, I felt there was no reason to care about the characters. A few people die, but most of them had no impact and left me cold. For something that has taken inspiration from Apocalypse Now, where is the tension, the grit, the brutality?

The making-of sections were somewhat interesting, but ultimately highlighted the shortcomings of the piece. These scenes suggest that now is the time to perform a modern adaption of Conrad’s novel because of its damning critique of empire, including capitalism. But if these scenes weren’t there, I don’t think you’d be able to tell the piece was making any form of commentary. There may be very minor traces of the message, but they need to double down.

For me the best example of this is the “Land of Hope and Glory” montage. As the characters arrive in England, we see footage of its dark side, only nothing shown is too impactful. England has done much worse than flashing a few bums in Ibiza, and Boris Johnson on a zip line. We are a proud nation with a lot of skeletons in our closet. Bring them out! Watch the German film Look Who’s Back, and Spike Lee’s new film BLACKkKLANSMAN. These are two examples of state-of-the-nation montages that hurt to watch, and with some tweaks this could easily do the same.

The concept for this play is exceptional and very ambitious. The work technically is so bold and fresh that it cannot be knocked. But now that the camerawork and effects have been practically perfected, a reworking of the material could easily make it a monumentally impactful and exciting piece. I sincerely hope that Heart of Darkness returns in a new form soon, because there’s something special here, it just needs a little more work.  ★★★☆☆   Jeremy Ulster    21^st November 2018