Review: Atonement (Chichester Festival Theatre)

Review by Hywel Farrow-Wilton

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the third show I have reviewed for the 2026 Festival season in Chichester, and I am pleased to say that the quality of their output shows no sign of waning. Atonement is a time-bending story filled with interesting characters, war, love and more twists and turns than a funfair helter-skelter. Originally a novel by Ian McEwan, one of the country’s most famous contemporary authors, there have been several adaptations over the last twenty years, including an Oscar Award-winning film starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Whilst I doubt this production will be winning any awards of the same calibre, a decent cast, a top-of-the-range creative team and a compelling story make this show one to add to your watchlist.

I’m sure many of you reading this will be already familiar with the plot, but for those who haven’t got an entire bookshelf dedicated to McEwan’s novels, I will attempt to summarise one of Time magazine’s 100 greatest English novels since 1923. Act One of the play takes place exclusively in the Surrey country house of the Tallis family during the summer of 1935. We are introduced to a litany of characters, including the thirteen-year-old aspiring writer Briony, her mother, her adult siblings Leon and Ceclia, her cousins the fifteen-year-old Lola and nine-year-old twins Jackson, and Pierrot and Leon’s friend from Oxford, chocolate factory owner Paul Marshall. Additionally, we are introduced to Robbie Turner, the son of one of Tallis’ employees, who has grown up on their estate and attended the University of Cambridge with Ceclia. One evening, Briony witnesses what she believes is Robbie committing a horrendous crime for which he is imprisoned for several years. 

In the second act, the narrative shifts rapidly through time and place, following Robbie at Dunkirk in 1940, Cecilia in Balham, and Briony working as a wartime nurse in London before eventually returning to the Surrey house in 1999, by then converted into a hotel. There is a pleasing contrast between the pace of the two acts; neither breaks an hour in length, but the slower pacing of the first act gives time for the audience to learn the characters and central plot before being whisked through time in Act Two. 

The play itself is adapted by the equally legendary writer Sir Christopher Hampton, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2007 film adaptation of Atonement. It’s hard to pin down exactly what genre this play could be classified as. The film is described on Wikipedia as a ‘romantic war tragedy’, but this belies its elements of mystery, moments of comedy, and I’m not entirely convinced of how ‘romantic’ the relationship between Robbie and Ceclia is. What is fantastic about Hampton’s adaptation is how he captures the psychological complexity of the characters, and the twists and reveals that McEwan is so famous for. 

A handful of scenes would benefit from more careful pacing. Emotions occasionally seem to spring dramatically from characters rather than being satisfyingly built throughout the scene, and as a result, the play occasionally feels like a melodramatic soap opera and ultimately doesn’t manage to stir strong emotions during its climaxes. However, these moments are few and overall, the play is charming enough for the audience to gloss over these moments, and the meta jokes and teasing of the reveal make for a surprising and satisfying ending to the play.

Direction by Adam Penford is innovative and playful, with several moments of theatrical flair. He creates an environment that adapts easily and superbly to the context of the scenes, which is not an easy feat for a play that frequently jumps time and space. There were, however, a few scenes in the first act that felt slightly under-rehearsed and a bit plainly directed, which made them drag slightly and undermined the chemistry between the actors. However, with subsequent performances, most of these rough edges will hopefully be ironed out. 

Designer Anthony Ward is easily a stand-out among the creative team, and his set has a fantastic chameleon quality to it, allowing it to move seamlessly between time periods and locations without seeming out of place at all. There is an imposing spiral staircase that leads up to a first floor above the stage, where, through a rectangular opening, the audience gazes into some of the most intimate and scandalous scenes that take place, becoming a somewhat unwilling voyeur to the characters’ relationships.  

The central cast includes Jasper Talbot as Robbie Turner, the young man who falls in love with Ceclia and is imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Jasper gives a commendable performance, and he conveys Robbie’s youthful innocence transformed into frustration at his imprisonment very well. Isabella Dempster, as the young Briony Tallis, expertly moves between the thirteen and eighteen-year-old versions of Briony, showing fantastic physical and psychological differences between the two versions. Miriam Petche plays Ceclia as quite a stock character with a few interesting moments of drama, wearing, of course, the iconic green dress. Jessica Turner plays the older Briony Tallis, and whilst she does not have a lot of stage time, her presence on stage is absolutely magnetic, and she portrays a very commanding but empathetic character. Tom Chapman completely steals the show in the first act for his portrayal of chocolate mogul Paul Marshall. His portrayal was as subtly comic as it was utterly sinister, and it’s a shame the character only appears in Act One. 

Ultimately, Atonement is an often gripping drama that provides an entertaining evening while falling just short of excellence in a few key areas. I’m sure the play will appeal to devoted fans of Ian McEwan’s work, and I would say fans of the book/show Rivals will also find it appealing. Though it occasionally leans too heavily into soap-opera territory for my taste, if high drama and scandal are your cup of tea, this will surely be an enjoyable night for you.

Atonement plays at the Chichester Festival Theatre until 20^th June. Tickets from https://www.cft.org.uk/events/atonement

Photos by Manuel Harlan