Review: REYKJAVIK, Hampstead Theatre

Richard Bean’s Under the Whaleback, dealing with the Hull trawling community, was seen at the Royal Court more than twenty years ago. He returns to the topic – and some of the same characters – in Reykjavik, now showing at the Hampstead Theatre. Where the earlier piece focused on the men on the ships, this play views the same story through the experiences of the trawler owners and to an extent, the women left behind.

The first act is set in Claxton Line distant water trawling company. Donald Claxton, who has taken over the company previously run by his father, is in the process of sacking one of his skippers, and dealing with the aftermath of yet another ship being lost off Iceland. His father calls in to remind him of his duties following that tragedy, when he must complete the walk, going round to all the widows and paying them their dead husband’s wages. By tradition, he does this on foot and according to strict expectations.

Reminding his son of what will be expected of him, William Claxton is a morose and haunted figure, harmed by the experiences he has gone through and yet totally resigned to that being just how things are. His son, however, a somewhat unlikely University graduate with a liking for Walt Whitman, although impressively played by John Hollingworth, is resisting the expectations of history and tradition. A brief meeting with a new vicar sees him challenged to go to Iceland to get the survivors home, rather than just arranging this remotely.

So Act II sees Donald Claxton in Iceland, where his remaining fishermen are holed up in a dismal Reykjavik hotel. Where Act I is notable for a gritty realism with occasional mystic overtones, nicely enhanced by Grant Olding’s minimal musical backing, Act II goes more fully into a kind of mystical approach, leading to something of a mismatch between the two sections.

Despite these reservations, this is an engrossing play with some superb acting, especially from those doubling up on roles. Newcomer Sophie Cox convinces as a 1970s secretary and the stroppy young owner of an Icelandic hotel, while Matthew Durkan alternates a typical 1970s hippy vicar with a deeply troubled and aggrieved young fisherman, Jack Jopling. Paul Hickey impresses too, as the older Claxton but also as the embittered fisherman Quayle with his elegy for the past.

Laura Elsworthy makes much of a short appearance as Lizzie, her role seeming to serve as a way of telling us more about Donald Claxton, and Matt Sutton convincingly portrays the one character who has a home life that seems to be sustaining him through the current tragedy. Finally, Adam Hugill, seen briefly as the sacked skipper in Act I, creates a wholly believable Snacker, the young deckhand who is the butt of jokes but has talents of his own. At the centre of the story as Claxton, John Hollingsworth, last reviewed by WEBF in Antony and Cleopatra at the Globe, is a powerful and deeply troubled presence.

Their isolation in Reykjavik leads each of the characters to tell a tale of some unexplained event in the past, all too believable in the isolated circumstances in which they find themselves. Director Emily Burns undercuts these stories with sound, music and shadows at the doors and windows, perhaps unbalancing the atmosphere created in Act I where the subtle flickering of lights and appearance of fleeting faces at the window were perhaps more effective.

For the most part, however, and with some superb sets from Anna Reid, Reykjavik is a fascinating window into a forgotten and long-lost lifestyle, superbly acted, in another impressive production from Hampstead Theatre.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Chris Abbott

Reykjavik plays at the Hampstead Theatre until 23 November, with further info below…

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2024/reykjavik/

Photo credit: Mark Douet