Review: Let the Right One In #LTROI

A sweet, tender love story with flashes of extreme violence; an idyllic forest scene with litres of blood. It is very, very special and I have seen nothing like it on the stage before. It draws you in emotionally, then makes you jump up in your seat with shock. The director, John Tiffany, likens it to Peter Pan as the story of, “someone who will never grow old and someone who will.” Except, of course, Peter Pan did not need to drink human blood. Martin Quinn is very good in his first professional stage role as Oskar but Rebecca Bensen is amazing as the vampire Eli. Her first remarks grated as strangely artificial but it quickly becomes apparent that she is simply inhuman. I missed the sold out run at the Royal Court last year but I am so glad the Apollo Theatre is now staging it. I wouldn’t recommend it for the very young (though a group of teenage girls in the audience loved it) or anyone with a weak heart, but for everyone else there is no excuse for anyone else not to see this astonishing production.