The Beach (novel) The Beach (novel) The Beach is a 1996 novel by English author Alex Garland. Set in Thailand, it is the story of a young backpacker's search for a legendary, idyllic and isolated beach untouched by tourism, and his time there in its small, international community of backpackers. In 2000, it was adapted into a film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In a cheap hotel on the Khao San Road in Bangkok, Richard, a young American backpacker, meets a mentally disturbed Scotsman going by the
The Man Who Pays The Piper type by the scruff of its neck." The theatricalism referred to in both reviews has to do with the characters other than Daryll who are portrayed more as caricatures than fully developed portraits. Morgan wrote that "Stern has introduced to her play characters that her taste and judgment would have excluded from a novel." Reviews of the 2013 production sounded similar notes. For "The Independent", Paul Taylor wrote, "There's often too little narrative impetus but the problems the piece raises are still pertinent." Laura Thompson, reviewing for "The Telegraph" wrote, "Stern is no Ibsen, and she rarely says something once