Rating: ★★★
Venue: Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
Cast: Daniel Boyd, David Yelland, Alan Cox, Julius D’Silva, Archie Backhouse, Forbes Masson
It is Summer 1945: Hitler is dead, but war in the Pacific rages on. The Allies have detained six of Germany’s most gifted nuclear scientists – including three Nobel Prize winners – at Farm Hall, a stately home just outside Cambridge. They entertain themselves with some redacted newspapers, a broken piano and a copy of Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. But their tranquil summer is shattered by the news that the Americans have succeeded where the Germans failed. The United States has not only built an atom bomb, it has used one against Japan. Unbeknownst to the scientists, during their stay, every inch of Farm Hall was bugged and their every reaction recorded.
Katherine Moar’s debut play, Farm Hall, is making its West End debut for thirty performances only!
I went into the Theatre Royal Haymarket only knowing the name of the show, and I was excited to discover what this show would be about. A play about the German nuclear scientists that the Allies have detained in a countryside house in Cambridge was not what I was expecting, but definitely left me intrigued.
I think that Ceci Calf’s set design was brilliant. The theatre is huge, but the set itself is small. Just a scarcely decorated room with walls that barely reach half of the height of the stage. I think it simulated how the characters were feeling, as they were trapped in a house while they could look out the windows and see the vast countryside. My only gripe would be with the door on stage right. Both doors were used throughout as normal doors, but while the stage left door was styled as a normal door, the stage right door looked as though it was trying to be disguised as part of the wall. It threw me off because I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a door or a way to let the actors into the stage. I also thought John Leonard’s sound design was also brilliant, with the sublet outdoor sounds indicating that they truly were outside of populous civilisation.
The pacing of the show is slow, but in the right way. When we’re first introduced to the characters, they’re beyond bored. They’ve been trapped in this house with little to do and barely any communication with the outside world. What that results in is humorous conversations and intense arguments. The dynamic of all six actors was strong. It really did feel as though they had been cooped together for a long time and were hitting their breaking point.
One thing that left me confused was the interval. I don’t think that there was a need for it, especially since the show is just under two hours including it. Act 2 starts immediately after the end of Act 1, and because of that, the show lost a bit of momentum for me. It took me a few minutes to get back into it. I would’ve preferred for the interval to be cut so I could stay engaged the entire time, and I feel as though the stakes would’ve felt higher.
Julius D’Silva (Diebner) was the standout of the show for me. His character was dynamic, and I truly felt like I understood who he was and what motivated him. I was also a huge fan of Hahn (Masson). His character seems the nicest of the group, almost the peacekeeper, only to find out that his discovery is what led to the atomic bomb. Forbes Masson does an incredible job showing the morality of a person who could very will live in infamy. Archie Backhouse’s Bagge was another standout to me, as his character’s motivations were strong, and I felt that he had the most to lose, which was portrayed wonderfully. As I said before, enough cannot be said for the dynamic of this whole cast. They played so well off of each other, and their collective performance was my favourite part of the show.
This show asked a lot of “what if” questions and had the characters questioning themselves and each other. What if Germany had created the nuclear bomb first? Where would they have bombed? Why were they all working on the project? Why could they never complete it? But in the end, none of that mattered. They failed, and America did it. However, those “what if's" and questionable motivations seemed to be the focal point of the show, when those things wouldn’t matter anymore. What mattered was how this experience, both the failure and the detainment, was going to change them. While the questions were interesting to think about, they never answered the most important one: what are we going to do now?
You can book tickets to Farm Hall, here.
Review by Becca
**photo credit: Alex Brenner**
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