The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: lead actor talks about the role’s physical demands
The West End adaptation of Mark Haddon’s bestselling book is coming to Hong Kong for the 2018 Arts Festival. Joshua Jenkins talks about the effort of playing the 15-year-old main character and the play’s positive effects on audience members who are on the autistic spectrum
One warm evening in 2015 the entire cast of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time were gathered for a party at a cottage near Truro in Cornwall, southwest England.
They were there as part of the first UK tour of the National Theatre production and were having a rare night off at the digs of one of the cast members, chatting and drinking and eating. Then, in the skies above them, there was a shooting star.
“We sat there for 15 or 20 minutes in absolute silence,” remembered Joshua Jenkins, who was playing the lead role of Christopher Boone. “We were all able to sit there without talking, in a kind of wonder. And I think that was because of the character of Christopher.
“When you play Christopher Boone every night you get to open your eyes and start people-watching or looking up at the sky and realising how negligible you are. He’s such a wonderful, beautiful being.”
Curious Incident – which is based on British author Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel of the same title – is the story of a 15 year-old boy whose favourite colour is “red and metal colour” and when he looks at the rain it makes him think how all the water in the world is connected. He also can only tell the truth.
Yet around him, many of the adults keep on withholding the truth. And when a neighbour’s dog, Wellington, is killed and everyone refuses to talk about it, Christopher decides to become a detective and find out who did it. Which leads the way to all sorts of adventures and hidden truths.
