Stage Review: The Great Gatsby at Derby Theatre
- debra Hall
- Oct 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 13
The Great Gatsby
⭐ ⭐
Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Adapted by Elizabeth Newman
Directed by Sarah Brigham
The character Nick Carraway is the narrator and is purposed well, crucially, he provides a first person narrative of Jay Gatsby (Gatsby) and is an important figure in this old story.
The play is structured around Carraway’s memory of moving for work and renting in Long Island close to Gatsby’s fancy home. He acknowledges the love Gatsby once shared with his own cousin, Daisy and he tells of how the two had lost touch and that she had later married the wealthy, but disloyal, Tom.
Aware of The Great War and its lasting impact Carraway’s memories are a mix of events he’d come to know about and those he had witnessed himself through mixing with the circle of New York’s fashionable people, including Gatsby himself.
As the play draws to an end Carraway provides a summing up of the nature of Gatsby, an ordinary man in a sense, who had benefitted greatly through his associations, financially and otherwise, and who had used that money to elevate his status in order to pursue a dream. The moral of the story is money alone does not ‘maketh the man’ and having trust in people can shoot one down in the end.
Comment
‘An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters ever afterwards’ F. Scott Fitzgerald [quoted in New York Tribune, 7 May 1920]
We can agree that The Great Gatsby is classic work that has transitioned into being a period piece with much educational value, with the novel as the source this adaption by Elizabeth Newman, (a former Artistic Director for Pitlochry’s Festival Theatre) who does capture the author's language rather beautifully, and, directed by Derby Theatre’s own Sarah Brigham - this should be fabulous.
Unfortunately, this show is disappointingly flat; it lacks razzmatazz. A stage setting should provide the opportunity to do a show like this justice, but this stage show just doesn't. A production like this should never be low key. A high budget helps, nonetheless, this, seemingly, is a poor man’s version of The Great Gatsby and evidence of that fact is across the design and technical board.
David Rankine as Carraway is impressive, perhaps lacks a degree of stage presence considering his key role, but his lines are massive and he delivers and adopts well an American accent.
The Great Gatsby is part of Derby Theatre's 50th anniversay celebrations, at Derby Theatre until 25 October 2025.
ENDS
Stage Review of The Great Gatsby by theatre critic, Debra Hall who attended the press night performance at Derby Theatre, on Thursday 09 October at 7.30pm
References
Made in Derby printed cast list
Derby Theatre production photography 10 October 2025
Photography by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Derby Theatre https://derbytheatre.co.uk/event/the-great-gatsby/
Cohen, J. M. and K. J. The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations Penguin Books 2002
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