The Lives of Others review – Keira Knightley brings star power to Robert Icke’s Stasi drama

Adelphi theatre, London Theatre wunderkind’s adaptation of the Oscar-winning film has plenty of suspenseful stagecraft but struggles to match its subtlety

Another new show, another old story. This film-to-stage adaptation is from the 2006 German-language romantic thriller about Stasi surveillance and suppression of art in the former GDR. The accompanying, now almost obligatory, high-prestige screen actor is Keira Knightley, presumably whipping up ticket-selling frenzy and stage-door brouhahas.

Except this production is helmed by theatre wunderkind Robert Icke, whose work is marked by the utmost integrity and who has a record of making fast-moving, suspense-filled work of canonical material (from the Greeks in Oedipus and Oresteia to Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi reimagined as The Doctor).