New stage adaptation of A Room with a View is shimmering, irrepressible joy

Brett Boardman/Belvoir E.M.

Forster’s 1908 novel, A Room with a View , follows the journey of a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, as she navigates her way through the strictures of Edwardian society to follow her own path to love and happiness.

The title is the clue, with the novel exploring its themes and character relationships through a series of oppositions: the closed room/expansive view; England/Italy; intellect/passion; male/female and so on.

The story is also likely familiar to many through the acclaimed 1985 Merchant-Ivory film – lushly beautiful, highly romantic, and one that faithfully reproduces the central love story of the original.

But in Grace Chapple’s delightful and incisive play adaptation, the story shimmers and refocusses and settles into 2026.

Conventional binaries and social expectations are critically inspected, blurred and reconfigured.

Our first sight of Zoë Atkinson’s set is not exactly prepossessing.

We see a wall of depressingly grey roller blinds, atop an expanse of office-grey carpet. (On closer inspection, a faint floral pattern is revealed: the landscape and nature have infiltrated the play’s interior spaces, too.) Zoë Atkinson’s set creates many rooms and views in both Italy and England.

Brett Boardman/Belvoir Behind the blinds are monumental green Crittall windows and doors stretching from one side of the stage to the other, creating many rooms and views in both Italy and England.

This rigid structure is sometimes literally an obstacle for the performers.

But, like the stifling social conventions of Edwardian England some are chafing against, the performers work both with it and around it – in one instance, playing a game of tennis around it, beautifully choreographed by Elle Evangelista.

Polite words, and impolite feelings The play opens with Lucy (Nathalie Morris) and her chaperoning cousin Charlotte (Hayley McElhinney) throwing open the window of their hotel room in Florence – to discover that there is, in fact, no promised view.

We know this because a cardboard sign is held up outside the window, proclaiming “No View”.

This gets an instant first laugh from the audience, and sets the scene for director Hannah Goodwin’s strategic and intelligent production, which both stages the action and comments on it.