FOR KING AND COUNTRY. To 18 April.

Cambridge/Belfast.

FOR KING AND COUNTRY
by John Wilson.

Canmdridge Arts Theatre To 11 April
.
7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm.
TICKETS: 01223 503333.
www.cambridgeartstheatre.com (£2 booking fee on all tickets)

then Grand Opera House Belfast 14-18 April.
7.45pm Mat Thu 2pm & Sat 2.30pm.
TICKETS: 02890 241919.
www.goh.co.uk

Runs 1hr 30min No interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 April.

Moving story of one who didn't get away.
Title-wise, this is the play of the film. The more evocative For King and Country was used when Joseph Losey filmed John Wilson’s 1964 play Hamp - from the fiftieth World War I anniversary that created Oh What A Lovely War! Very different though it is, Wilson’s play shares a sixties anti-establishment stance.

There’s a brief explanation why a 23-year old Lancashire millworker, a volunteer being tried for desertion, has to be executed: pour encourager les autres. Militarily, the need for the sentence amid the five-month hell of Passchendaele is clear.

But it places grim necessity above humanity, as Tristam Powell’s persuasive Touring Partnership production shows. Designer Tim Shortall sets the action amid grey ruins, with an equally grey, but ordered room for the central trial. It then disappears, with most of the officer class.

The situation's weighted by Hamp being someone who's easily led – a trusting volunteer who barely understands his actions in going AWOL. Each act he apologetically excuses himself with quaint official politeness to use the toilet.

Wilson hasn't the range that gives R C Sherriff’s Journey’s End its place as the leading depiction of trench life; nor Sherriff’s patience in building characters and situations. But he forcefully arranges the courtroom drama, with its fair procedures (much more than the equivalent in Stanley Kubrick’s 1958 Paths of Glory) that don’t prevent set minds reaching an inevitable verdict and sentence.

There’s a sense of rising doubt among the officers immediately involved. Dugald Bruce-Lockhart’s Lieutenant has moments of anger with Hamp rooted in the soldier making him question what’s happening. Kevin Doyle’s admirably-played Padre clings to belief. Daniel Weyman’s defending officer is a model of decency unused to what he’s seeing.

But the play depends on Hamp. Adam Gillen shows a pathetic individual, clinging to a self-respect (“I had a trade”) meaning nothing to his officer-judges. Vulnerable, honest to the point of naivety, convincing himself a first offence won’t bring death, his mouth hanging open after each sentence struggles out in a high-pitched, beseeching voice, or leaning toward the defender he relies on, Gillen makes this a riveting 90-minutes.

Sergeant Major: Robert Ashcroft.
Lieutenant Tom Webb: Dugald Bruce-Lockhart.
Padre: Kevin Doyle.
Captain O’Sullivan: Patrick Drury.
Private Arthur Hamp: Adam Gillen.
Corporal: John Hollingworth.
Guard Private: Tomos James.
Orderly Officer: Sam Pamphilon.
Captain Midgley: Martin Savage.
Lieutenant Prescott: John Sheerman.
Lieutenant William Hargreaves: Daniel Weyman.
President of the Court: David Yelland.
Ensemble: Benjamin Noble, Nick Rhys.

Director: Tristram Powell.
Designer/Costume: Tim Shortall.
Lighting: Johanna Town.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Associate director: Lloyd Wood.

2009-04-08 13:26:44