Writer: Thomas Harris
Adaptor: Gina Gionfriddo
Director: Nikolai Foster
Hannibal Lecter, locked in a high security prison, knows more than he’s saying about the recent spate of serial killings that have been attributed to the mysterious ‘Buffalo Bill’, so rookie FBI Officer Clarice Starling, is sent in to see what she can get out of him. Her boss thinks that, being a woman and all, she might have more of a chance of getting the information they need, plus, he doesn’t have anybody else to do it. He’s right. Lecter does like Clarice. He likes to play psychological games with her. Luckily, she’s more than up to the job.
While such a well-known story has the huge benefit of filling a theatre, these kind of adaptations come with their problems. It’s unrealistic to think that John Partridge (as Hannibal Lecter) and Mollie Gallagher (as Clarice Starling) can ever live up to the memorable performances of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in the 1991 film. It’s their portrayals of these characters that we have firmly fixed in our brains, Lecter, masked and tied to a trolly is even recognisable for people who haven’t seen the film. So it seems a good move to go back to Thomas Harris’s original novel for this stage premier at the Lowry. As adaptor Gina Gionfriddo writes “it’s a good sized book and a 90-minute film. So I was interested to explore a lot of the stuff that the film just didn’t have time to get into”.
Unfortunately, while there are plenty of script diversions from the film, everything else about the production seems to struggle to get away from it. From Lecter’s glass encased cell to Starling’s cheap suit, the whole thing seems to be trying to look and feel cinematic, and in doing so creates a rather detached and over-blown production that lacks any kind of emotion.
There seems to be a lost opportunity here. A psychological thriller should be more about the unseen, the things people say and the images in the audiences’ minds, all of which is perfectly achievable in a novel or through the close-up nature of film. So much of Jonathan Demme’s version was told through close ups on eyes (accentuated when Lecter is in the mask), something that just can’t be replicated on stage, particularly one as big and far away as Lowry’s Lyric Theatre. Director Nikolai Foster has tried to make up for this with a more action-packed re-telling, and while fight scenes are effective thanks to Dale White’s movement direction, jump scares and gory props don’t really make up for the lack of chilling psychological drama.
The set is huge and adds to the cinematic nature of the production, and while it feels bulky at times, levels are well used to tell the overlapping stories, and lighting by Howard Hudson creates some dramatic, smaller moments. This especially offers an opportunity for Sam Jackson (as Jame Gumb) to do some great physical stuff, roaming around topless and modelling his skin suit. His scenes are by far the most theatrically interesting.
One script diversion for this production is particularly obvious. Criticised over the years for being transphobic, Buffalo Bill’s backstory gets a makeover for the 21st century with his reason for making a skin suit being rooted in absent mother issues. This is well handled and seems just as plausible as the book’s original, and ill judged, reasoning.
It’s frustrating to think that this could have been the perfect ‘spooky season’ offering, but there’s no chills to be had here.
Runs until 10 October 2026
