Peter Gynt review: Meandering update of Ibsen's sprawling fantasy at National Theatre

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Who thought this was a good idea? Henrik Ibsen’s sprawling 19th century verse fantasy Peer Gynt is a hard ask for modern audiences, with its trolls and folklore figures, and an antihero searching for a self that doesn’t exist.

David Hare has updated it so his ‘Peter’ Gynt is a randy Scottish liar who lucks into and loses various empires — and seduces several women — as a sort of one-man fake news machine.

But this modern overlay is glib, and the joky tone of Jonathan Kent’s production only emphasises the vacancy behind Gynt’s haphazard and seemingly random adventures.

It lasts three-and-a-half hours and it’s a slightly more pleasant meander than it sounds. You can admire the scope and the professionalism. But I feel we’ve spent too long already this year listening to men with a sense of entitlement and nothing to back it up.

This annoying Gynt is too lazy to make up myths, instead stealing the plots of old movies. (Some references will be lost on anyone under 50 who wanders in, I feel.) He ends up owning a golf course and a media empire, becoming an arms dealer and a guru, but the parallels with contemporary targets feel effortful.

In the lead, the charismatic James McArdle falls back on bluster and showman’s patter because he’s playing a character with no character. Most of the supporting roles are so thin they barely register. Women inevitably submit to Gynt, whether ardently or reluctantly.

In place of the Edvard Grieg score that often accompanies Ibsen’s version, we get a few insipid songs by Paul Englishby. Designer Richard Hudson impressively crashes a plane and sails a trawler into the main set, a semi-disk of Dunoon lawn.

This is a co-production with the Edinburgh International Festival, hence the Scottish setting.

Both the Festival and the National Theatre surely hoped that Hare, Kent and McArdle would work the same alchemy on Ibsen’s work that they did on the trilogy of early Chekhov plays in 2015/16. Unfortunately, the magic is lacking here, though the trolls remain.

In rep at National Theatre, Oliver, SE1, until Oct 8: 020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk

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