BEFORE TRAFALGAR & WATERLOO. To 19 December.
London
BEFORE TRAFALGAR
by James Lansdale Hodson and
WATERLOO
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Finborough Theatre 118 Finborough Road SW10 5, 11, 12,18,19 December 2005 Runs 1hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 4000 838
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 December
War at the Finborough with two period rarities worth a viewing.
This ‘War Plays’ pairing both have a period piquancy. After last month’s fine Finborough production of Red Night, James Lansdale Hodson’s full-length, maximum-impact Great War drama, Before Trafalgar is a sliver. Extremely tame by modern standards, in its day the picture of Nelson working in stockinged-feet and suffering a modicum of self-doubt despite his admiring officers would have seemed daringly intimate and frank.
The most interesting section for modern audiences comes when Nelson has to order an officer back to England to face a critical enquiry, in the process weighing strategic battle considerations against thoughtfulness for a colleague. In a longer play, Hodson could have made much of the situation.
The cast of aCCenture and Concordance’s production play with dignity and sense, Christian Oliver showing the weight of responsibility and authority in decision-making which helped form Nelson’s character. The cast’s youth slightly distances the impact and, despite fine work by Laura Freeman, cross-gender casting doesn’t work in the play’s male environment.
How good an actor Freeman is becomes apparent in her tactful yet expressive portrayal of the farm-girl Nora, new-arrived to look after her nonagenarian great-uncle, by 1891 the last survivor of England’s army at Waterloo 66 years earlier, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s play.
As a playwright, Sherlock Holmes’ creator is a natural novelist, etching in character detail – old Gregory’s amazement at women travelling by train, his reliance on a few safe phrases as deafness leaves him convinced people talk softer nowadays. Against this, there’s clumsy construction, improbable soliloquy and awkward exposition of Corporal Brewster’s youthful daring.
But there are finely-contrasted central performances. Freeman’s young Nora is fresh as the butter with which she replaces the rancid mix a careless carer’s left her granddad. And Tim Barlow’s mighty figure has the jagged self-containment of an old man living alone, for whom communication today is an irregularity and who only connects with yesteryear. One moment Barlow might seem on the brink of overacting, the next on the verge of actual death. Nervy and magisterial, he makes this old soldier who’s never died, waiting to join his heavenly muster, a memorable figure.
BEFORE TRAFALGAR
Nelson: Christian Oliver
Hardy: Tom Foster
Collingwood: George Dalton
Sir Edward Berry: Laura Freeman
Blackwood: Mat Laroche
Sir Robert Calder: James Finnegan
WATERLOO
Nora: Laura Freeman
Sergeant Archie Nacdonald: Mat Laroche
Corporal Gregory Brewster: Tim Barlow
Colonel James Midwinter: George Dalton
Director: Rae McKen
Designer: Anna Stone
Lighting: Anne Scholze
Sound: Dan Mitcham
2005-12-08 00:05:24