Theatre Royal Brighton – 29th September – 3rd October 2026
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is a gripping, funny and moving night at the theatre, mixing a murder mystery with a coming-of-age story and some seriously clever stagecraft.
This new production takes Mark Haddon’s much-loved story and gives it a fresh perspective, with Alex Keenan making an extraordinary professional debut as Chris Boone. Add Joe McFadden, Charlie Brooks and Bridgette Amofah to the cast, along with some wonderfully inventive staging, and there’s a lot to enjoy.
At the heart of the story is Chris Boone, a 15-year-old girl with an exceptional mind for numbers and a very different way of making sense of the world around her. When her neighbour’s dog is found dead, Chris decides to investigate, taking on the role of detective as she tries to work out exactly what has happened. What starts as a straightforward mystery soon takes her somewhere much more complicated, forcing her to deal with family secrets, unfamiliar situations and a world that doesn’t always make much sense to her.
Joe McFadden (Holby City and Strictly Come Dancing Winner 2017) and Charlie Brooks (Eastenders’ Janine Butcher) are excellent as Chris’s parents, Ed and Judy. McFadden brings a believable mixture of awkwardness, affection and frustration to Ed, while Brooks gives Judy plenty of emotional depth and heartbreak. Both performances help make the family relationships feel complicated and painfully human. Nobody here is reduced to being simply good or bad, and that makes the emotional moments land with much more force.
It’s a smart choice to gender swap Chris’ character in this production as it gives the character a fresh perspective. The production retains the heart of the original story while giving this much-loved character a new identity on stage. And then there’s Alex Keenan. For a professional debut, this is seriously impressive.
Chris is on stage for much of the production and the role demands an enormous amount from its leading actor, both physically and emotionally. Keenan throws herself into it with remarkable confidence, capturing Chris’s directness, intelligence, confusion and determination without ever reducing her to a collection of traits.
There’s a real physicality to the performance too. When Chris becomes overwhelmed, the audience feels that change rather than just being told about it. Her movements, facial expressions and reactions communicate so much, while her fixation with numbers, patterns and logic gives the character a fascinating rhythm. It’s a demanding performance and Keenan handles it with real conviction. By the end, you’re completely behind Chris and cheering her on.
Bridgette Amofah is equally impressive as Siobhan, Chris’s teacher and the narrator of the story. She provides an important bridge between Chris’s thoughts and the audience, helping us understand what is going on inside her head while also developing her own relationship with Chris. There’s warmth, humour and compassion in Amofah’s performance, and she brings another layer to a story that could easily become overwhelmingly intense.
The staging deserves a huge amount of credit too. With this production, the stage becomes an extension of Chris’s mind, with projections, screens, physical theatre and cleverly used props constantly changing what we’re seeing.
Letters falling from the ceiling are a particularly lovely touch, while balls are used to represent the overwhelming rush of thoughts and sensations when Chris becomes distressed. During some of the more chaotic sequences, the stage can feel as overwhelming for the audience as the world feels for Chris. It’s an effective way of putting us inside her experience rather than asking us to watch from a distance.
The puppetry is another highlight. The dog and rat are brought to life with a simplicity that works beautifully, and there’s something unexpectedly charming about watching the cast manipulate these characters as part of the wider story. Video projections also play an important role, taking us inside Chris’s thought processes and helping transform ordinary objects and spaces into something far more striking.
What makes the production particularly effective is that the clever theatrical tricks never completely overshadow the story. Yes, there are moments when you’re admiring how something has been staged, but the emotional journey remains at the centre of it all. Chris’s investigation gradually becomes about much more than finding out who killed a dog. It becomes a story about independence, trust, family and having the courage to do something that feels completely terrifying.
There’s humour here too, much of it coming naturally from Chris’s wonderfully literal way of looking at language and people. Her discomfort with metaphors creates some genuinely funny moments, while her fascination with numbers gives the production a distinctive voice. It’s never afraid to let the audience laugh, even when the subject matter becomes difficult.
The production also manages to make Chris’s achievements feel genuinely satisfying. Watching her tackle challenges that most people take for granted gives the final stages of the story a real sense of triumph. It isn’t about suddenly changing who Chris is. It’s about seeing what she can achieve when she is given the chance to do things her own way.
There’s a lot to enjoy in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. It’s clever without being cold, emotional without becoming overly sentimental and visually inventive without losing sight of the characters. Most importantly, Alex Keenan is a fantastic new Chris Boone and looks like an actor with a very exciting career ahead of her.
If you already know the story, this fresh production gives you a good reason to see it again. If you don’t, you’re in for a fascinating show that combines mystery, humour, emotion and some wonderfully imaginative theatre. It’s a show that keeps you guessing, keeps you watching and, by the end, leaves you rooting wholeheartedly for Chris.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time play review – 5 stars
Credit for production images: Johan Persson
Image credit for Charlie Brooks and Joe Mcfadden: Rich Lakos/ArenaPAL
Image credit for Joe Mcfadden headshot – Natasha Merchant
