Charlie Babbitt is an emotionally closed-off, ambitious and entitled luxury car salesman. On learning that his estranged father has died, he is angry to discover that he has not inherited a fortune. Rather, but for a vintage car and a rose bush, the inheritance has gone to a secret beneficiary: an autistic brother named Raymond who Charlie never knew about. Bundling Raymond into a car to extort money from his brother’s trustees, Charlie has to confront his own emotional barriers in managing a savant brother with his own impediments to expressing himself.

The stage version of Rain Man cleaves very strongly to the film. Cuts and edits have of course been made to better fit the medium but this is not a drastic reinterpretation of the material. The story beats hit the same points and the emotional arcs of the characters map out identically. As such any deficiencies with the original film, now thirty years old, carry over into the play. These are more to do with the style of screenplays in the late ‘80s and changing attitudes since the film came out.

It might now be considered a tired model to have a disabled minority or socially disadvantaged character serve as a prop to enable the growth of our preening white male protagonist. Similarly Charlie’s initial antagonism of his brother and wilful inability to grasp the dimensions of autism, whilst fairly normal attitudes of yesteryear, feel more dated and mean-spirited than they used to. This provides something of a barrier for the audience to sympathise with or root for Charlie’s emotional redemption. Not to say that disabilities like autism are not still stigmatised, but progress has been made since 1988.

To an extent these issues are diminished by the context of this being a film adaptation. To overhaul them is to overhaul the structure and content of Rain Man quite drastically – they are baked into the package. And rigidly adherent to the three-act structure and cathartic redemption of an objectionable protagonist though it may be, Rain Man is still a very affecting piece. Charlie may be petulant and bullying but he is also damaged by a deprivation of affection, aspects brought out very evocatively by Chris Fountain. Charlie’s movement from seeing Raymond as something to exploit to someone to protect is slow and hard-won but it is won.

Any discussion of performances must inevitably turn to Raymond though, here played by Adam Lilley, as the actor has the tightrope act of playing a very physically demanding and affected portrayal without it sliding into cartoon or mockery. Thankfully Lilley is more than up to the task and we are aware from the get-go as Raymond as person, not a series of quirks – even if the narrative does not imbue him with much agency or development.

If you are willing to excuse a few dated aspects inherited from the film version, Rain Man remains a very engaging piece of work.   ★★★★☆     Fenton Coulthurst   24^th April 2019