After being turned into a film, Patrick Ness's award-winning novel A Monster Calls becomes a visceral stage play. If you haven't read A Monster Calls, I suggest you immediately purchase it. A Monster Calls theatre review: ‘Stories are wild creatures. A Monster Calls is a low fantasy novel written for young adults by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay and published by Walker in 2011. In the hands of Sally Cookson, A Monster Calls is an instant classic: a show that transforms both hearts and minds through the magic of authentic storytelling. But it did. Into this mix comes a monster, in the shape of the huge old yew tree from their garden that visits the boy three times, each time to tell him a story. And I find myself struggling to put in words how much this book has touched me. A Monster Calls has to be the most inventive book I've read this year. Don't read the e-book because you would miss out on the amazing artwork. Yet there’s nothing scary in the rest of “A Monster Calls,” nothing that people—adults or children—will fail to understand. The music, the staging and the acting are so beautifully mesmerising, they really do Siobhan Dowd’s devastatingly moving story … Share: Opening with a simple, stark white set, it isn’t obvious that Bristol Old Vic’s staging of A Monster Calls is going to be able to deliver everything this heartbreaking, and sometimes disturbing, story needs. Set in present-day England, it features a boy who struggles to cope with the consequences of his mother's illness.He is repeatedly visited in the middle of the night by a monster who tells stories. A Monster Calls Old Vic Four stars Book Now. Patrick Ness Old Vic and Bristol Old Vic Bristol Old Vic 31 May to 16 June 2018. A Monster Calls … Tour information for A Monster Calls (Play) touring 24th March 2020 to 13th June 2020 (10 venues), details, news, reviews and tickets from UKTW, the UK's oldest theatre website. QTIX: T1275092737 Loved the production of ‘A Monster Calls’ at @oldvictheatre. Lewis MacDougall is remarkable as a young boy dealing with grief in an excellent adaptation of the Patrick Ness novel The cast of A Monster Calls. Culture > Theatre & Dance > Features ‘I don’t think anything is impossible to put on stage': Sally Cookson on the enormous challenge of adapting A Monster Calls. Whether A Monster Calls should be considered a children’s film or adults’ film about childhood is uncertain. Photo: Manuel Harlan. ... coming into the action and leaving it to play a mix of roles. Whether A Monster Calls should be considered a children’s film or adults’ film about childhood is uncertain. A Monster Calls review – wrenchingly effective 4 / 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars. In its opening scenes A Monster Calls is a difficult play to warm to. A Monster Calls review, Old Vic: mightily stirring account of a boy's refuge from grief 4. A Monster Calls. Painfully predictable and trite, A Monster Calls is a macabre and overly melodramatic coming-of-age film. Based on the novel by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls has been adapted for the stage by director Sally Cookson and the company. Go with someone and join the masses who rose to their feet and hugged those near them.