Reykjavik - Hampstead Theatre

Sadly agree.

The first half is superb; a real Rolls-Royce piece of dramatic engineering, serious, truthful, sophisticated, complex.

Then... Act 2. Virtually a different play, and frankly (for me) all over the place. Simply didn't believe half of what I was seeing. I can see how on paper it might have made sense, but the theory hasn't translated into a plausible reality. Maybe it'll bed down with time, but I honestly think it was fundamentally misconceived. Very frustrating.

Ticket available for tonight on noticeboard

Just got back home after seeing the (final?) preview yesterday.


I thought it was fine and, indeed, I liked it more than To Have and to Hold or Jack Absolute… It’s true enough that there were balance issues and I can see how some might find the seeming mismatch between the 50m first part in which much is hinted at and the near 90m second in which, arguably, little is resolved problematic* (to keep spoilers to a minimum I’ll restrict details to a footnote which can be ignored by those who prefer not to know).


Maybe my determination not to spoil my enjoyment of new Richard Bean pieces by holding them up to the author’s highest standards (OM2G, The Big Fellah et al) was doing some extra-heavy lifting; or perhaps Reykjavik is just good, honest theatre of the kind whose remit is to entertain and provide a modicum of food for thought. Perhaps there was too much clowning and too little content (not sure what I mean by that but it seems the right word!) in an overlong second part. But it never seemed incongruous in the grotesque way that the recent Juno and the Paycock did. I always felt that a group of deep-sea fishermen under stress in a foreign city might, at a stretch, behave like this. Whether or not it is interesting to witness them behaving like this is a question audience members will have to address individually. My own answer is that the 2h40m (inc interval) flew by (something else that I couldn’t credit Juno.. with) and I didn’t spot any phones flashing on and off in the audience (a sure sign that the auditorium wasn’t full of people desperately checking the only timepiece they have with them to see how much more they have to put up with).

The sets (changing at the interval from Hull office to Reykjavik hotel bar) are simple, functional and relatively uncluttered – a blessing at Hampstead, which too often puts stuff at the sides cutting off the view from high/low numbered seats. The performances were very good even if (on the basis of no specialised knowledge!) I wasn’t impressed with Sophie Cox’s Icelandic accent and I hesitate to detract from the ensemble effort by singling anyone out. Oh, go on then: William Claxton as the fleet owner’s father in the first part and especially as a bluff Irish fisherman in the second was particularly impressive.



To sum up: I’m recommending this and predicting it will do well at the box office. I think we find out what the critics make of it tomorrow morning.









*Possible Spoilers:

The first half seems to set up various interesting questions, not all of which are fully resolved in the second – which, instead of spending its extended length addressing the matters raised in the first part, seems rather to turn into a tribute to The Weir. To be fair, in Part 2 we do get an account of the ‘widow walk’ mentioned in Part 1, and we find out in Part 2 what personal grudge the fleet owner has against the captain we see getting sacked in Part 1. But other matters aren’t resolved – for example, I was convinced we were going to find out what happened between Claxton (the fleet owner) and Lizzie (wife of a particularly nasty fisherman who we meet in Part 2) while we were having our interval drinks. I also spent far too long trying to work out if the coupling (four of the seven cast members play different characters in each half) had any significance. But after rejecting several theories I concluded it was mainly done to save on the wage bill.

Tbf, he generally trades in broad humour with the odd serious point thrown in.  Characterisation - male or female - is seldom very profound and there is a cartoonish quality to most of his characters.  His women do tend to be minor - even token - characters.  That's a point worth making.  But Sophie Cox's hotelier wasn't the only character in the second part who came across as essentially a vehicle for stock comic behaviour.  I didn't watch Allo Allo so can't address that criticism; but the fishermen were hardly Boys from the Blackstuff level!  Only John Hollingworth as the fleet owner came across as anything like a fully fleshed-out individual.  But, for me at least, the play worked well as entertainment - and lines like the one about men giving their lives not for a sacred principle but for half a fish and chip supper carried the underlying serious message that Bean surely intended to get across.

Well, there's a bargain for anyone who wants to take a punt.  No need to take my recommendation: several of the early reviews are very positive.

Well this is more than a bit all over the place. I think I like every idea it has - but it doesn't have the time and the focus to really make them work. Cast are solid and I enjoyed the evening, I just wanted more. To pick one part of the story or even two and focus on it a little more. Bits of the second act just don't really hang together, not hugely believable.

It sounds like this play really doesn't deserve to be on papering sites. Poor Hampstead really is in the commercial doldrums at the moment, and undeservedly so in my opinion, as their recent programming has been strong.

Hopefully they'll get a bit of a lift with their forthcoming SRB / Stoppard combo. They just need to get the buzz going!

I know nothing about marketing or business models – in theatre or any other line of business. But it’s simply not the case that the reviews were uniformly- or even largely – bad. There were several 4* reviews from the mainstream press with headlines like ‘one of Bean’s very best’ and ‘Ibsen with better jokes’ and 3* reviews, many of which expressed opinions – generally favourable but with reservations about structure – very similar to those I expressed before press night. When I skimmed the blog write-ups I found a very similar pattern – with the balance tipping towards praise rather than denigration. The watershed – here and elsewhere – seems to be between those who are willing to overlook the flaws in favour of the entertainment content and those who aren’t. Given that Bean – while there is often a serious point underlying his plays – is at heart an entertainer I tend very definitely to forgive a certain level of imperfection. Reykjavik sits pretty much in the middle order of performances I’ve seen in the last three months or so: not up there with the Coronet’s The Wild Duck or Headlong’s A Raisin in the Sun – but way above the Gielgud’s Juno and the Paycock or the Almeida’s Roots.

The choices recently have been good. For example, to name but a few - Double Feature directed by Jonathan Kent, Rock 'n' Roll, The Forest by Florian Zeller - all with good casts.

Actually I was pretty disappointed by Double Feature. I thought the cast were great, but that the play didn't really develop as a narrative.  Thought the script was uninspiring. I became increasingly bored, looked at my watch several times, and was relieved when it was over.

Yet none of those appealed to me, whereas I did book for Reykjavik.

IMO Hampstead needs to adopt the strategy the OT and Old Vic have, plays that appeal to the local core audience and possibly beyond and with actors people are familiar with. I look at Abigail's Party which Stratford East did a few months ago and that sold incredibly well and that would done just as well if not better at Hampstead because it's a known title with known actors in this case Tamzin Ouitwaite and Kevin Bishop.
 
It seems that the leadership and the board of Hampstead are still in denial over the loss of ACE funding rather than see it as an opportunity to shake things up. The Donmar lost ACE funding but they've been able to attract audiences because the programming is good and they are getting the likes of Adrien Brody, Tasmin Greig, Celia Imrie etc The Orange Tree has been on a roll because they know what their audiences like and they don't have issue attracting the likes of Finn Cole, Roger Allam and Shaun Evans to name but three to perform there. Greg Ripley-Dunn has done well to stabilise things but I think personally he needs to step down and the board need to bring in new blood although Hampstead is going to stagnate even further.