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At a time when the RSC is riding high with its epic sweep of Shakespeare's entire cycle of history plays, it's curious that the company's esteemed artistic director Adrian Noble has chosen not to direct any of them but to lend his talents to producing The Secret Garden, a ten-year-old Broadway musical version of a classic children's story by Frances Hodgson Burnett instead.
He does a good job of it, too - but is this really the way to lead the company from the front, a company whose whole raison d'etre, embodied in its very name, is the work of Britain's pre-eminent dramatist?
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But the second act charts a dramatic progress towards something that is eventually quite uplifting, even radiant. It is in this act that the show's most resonant melodies take hold - including 'Lily's Eyes', an extraordinary anthem to Archibald's lost wife, which is performed by Archibald (the superb Philip Quast) and his brother, Neville (Peter Polycarpou), who also harboured an unspoken passion for her.
© Whatsonstage
