Film adaptation favours spectacle above emotion

The Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre

The Hunger Games is a stage version of the first film in the series of the same name. It has a stellar creative team, with Conor McPherson (The Weir, Girl From The North Country) doing the adaptation, Matthew Dunster directing and Miriam Buether designing. Many reviewers felt the nuances of the story were lost in the large scale spectacle, although some didn’t care about that. The critics didn’t actually agree on how spectacular the show was. Some were dazzled, others found it fell short of their expectations. Mia Carragher as the lead impressed with her action hero prowess.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Holly O’Mahony in The Stage was a fan of the spectacle: ‘there’s plenty here to impress fans of the franchise, and the space is used in its entirety. Set pieces rise up from beneath the arena-like stage, and props are lowered from above. Ian Dickinson’s sound design sends the flutter of birds’ wings around the auditorium, bringing us closer to the action; Kev McCurdy’s fight direction orchestrates gasp-worthy duels; and Chris Fisher’s illusions send arrows flying into the bullseye of their targets.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Cindy Marcolina at BroadwayWorld declared: ‘The actors are tireless athletes, the theatre is an imposing arena, and the stagecraft is often remarkable. Unfortunately, it’s also a soulless incarnation (…) If you expect to be wowed to the edge of your seat, the technical aspects will do that. If you look for emotional depth and the same thematic inquiry as the source material, you might be disappointed.’

For Alex Wood at WhatsOnStage, it was ‘a show that often feels caught between two impulses: thoughtful character study and full-throttle spectacle, and never really satisfyingly landing either.’ He concluded: ‘It has just enough theatrical invention to justify its existence beyond the films, while Carragher’s debut is a genuine highlight.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski took a different view of the choice of lead: ‘It’s hardly hack work. And it very nearly clicks – just a stronger lead away from triumph.’ He explained that ‘Mia Carragher is certainly up to the considerable physical demands of playing Katniss (…) But she’s somewhat light on the ol’ charisma and she talks in a breathy Marilyn Monroe-style accent that is odd bordering on distracting.’ He didn’t think it worked to have her as ‘both protagonist and narrator. It’s true that there’s a lot to explain. But in such an action-heavy format, having the lead character constantly offering background on what’s going on really undermines the sense of her living in a dangerous moment.’

The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion decided it wasn’t as good as the film: ‘Martial arts, modern dance, and hand-to-hand combat are what drive the pageant, heightened by strobe lighting and nasty white noise. Sadly for the producers, the practicalities of live performance can’t touch the roller-coaster ride of the film.’

Over at The Independent Alice Saville disagreed: ‘There are wince-inducing fight scenes, eyebrow-singeing bursts of fire, and dazzling bits of stage trickery. Its tensest moments plunge the audience right into this dangerous world’. Her beef is with McPherson’s adaptation: ‘he makes too much of Katniss and her sister’s pretty dresses, and not enough of their raging sense of injustice.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar found: ‘you don’t feel the dread in Conor McPherson’s adaptation, which seems clipped by the pace of events, all spectacle above emotion.’ She noted: ‘John Malkovich, appearing on screen as President Snow, goes his own way a little more, not as lugubriously contemptuous as Donald Sutherland in the film, more blank-eyed and Spock-like. But he remains as flat as his 2D image, more a cameo than a character.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

Claire Allfree for the Telegraph called it a ‘depressingly bad adaptation’. She continued: ‘Dunster’s production feels thuddingly perfunctory. Save for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of suspended action in the rafters, startlingly little use is made of the hangar-like proportions of the Troubadour auditorium (which was purpose-built for this show).’ Her parting shot was: ‘we are left with a mediocre half-way house, neither theatrically coherent nor, alas, a patch on the far superior films.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford ‘found this unexcitingly staged spectacle an underwhelming trudge.’ She was disappointed by the lack of spectacle: ‘With this sort of setting, an audience understandably expects bells-and-whistles excitement; as it is, the friend who came with me commented that, “It looks like they’re running around a school gym”.’

For Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre, it was ‘a damp squib’. She said: ‘Matthew Dunster’s production never really finds a unique and coherent theatrical language for The Hunger Games. It’s a hodge-podge of ideas, including limited video, songs, aerial stunts, and unconvincing stylised dance.’

‘This dystopia could surely do with a little more pizzazz,’ began The Times’ Clive Davis. ‘The in-the-round arena, designed by Miriam Buether, looks impressive when you take your seat, but once the action starts you soon discover that Dunster and his team struggle to fill it with enough spectacle to justify the steep prices.’ He found:  ‘Mia Carragher … is an energetic central presence as Katniss Everdeen (…) But the fact that she’s required to narrate much of the story while sprinting here and there is a distinct flaw in a script by the playwright Conor McPherson, which plods through the tale as told in the first film’.

Critics’ Average Rating 2.7⭑

Value rating 34 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

The Hunger Games continues at The Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre until October 2026. Buy tickets direct from the theatre