Crime and Punishment review – gripping portrait of Dostoevsky’s murderous antihero

2026-03-08 - 10:43

Cast, Doncaster Laurie Sansom’s bold decision to stage the literary classic with a cast of three pays off in parts thanks to compelling performances and an atmosphere of shadowy dread You might say it were a bold move to stage Dostoevsky’s landmark novel with a cast of three. That is not only because Northern Broadsides does not usually stage small-scale adaptations: this studio tour is a first. More to the point, it is that a 750-page literary classic hardly suggests such economy of means. You could make the case, however, that Laurie Sansom’s reworking should have been bolder still. How might it have been if the director had gone the whole hog and slimmed it down to a single actor? Continue reading...