Another Ruth Leon pocket theatre review: Rejkjavik at Hampstead Theatre

Rejkjavik – Hampstead Theatre 

The first half of Rejkjavik doesn’t happen in Rejkjavik at all but in Hull. This is playwright Richard Bean’s home town and he is deeply committed to its history as the home port of the fishing trawlers which venture to some of the most dangerous waters in the world and from where some never return.

When we meet trawler owner Donald  Craxton (John Hollingworth) he is dealing with the loss of one of his boats, leaving only a few survivors who are waiting in a down-market Rejkjavik hotel to be brought home to Hull.

Bean’s play gives us a close-up view of what this unforgiving business is about, the mythology of the seamen, the dependence on nature and on each other so that when Craxton decides to go, in person, to rescue his remaining crew members from the Rejkjavik hotel, we have a clear idea of the ‘them and us’ nature of the relationships in this most dangerous of professions.

A superb cast, led by John Hollingworth as Craxton, play both the visitors to Craxton’s Hull office in the first act, and the surviving seamen in the hotel in the second. In the office, each gives a different aspect of the business, the woman who is sorry that her abusive husband is one of the survivors, the old salt, Craxton’s father, who gives him advice about how to handle the loss, the young skipper who is fired for producing a low catch but really for sleeping with the boss’ wife, and the vicar who is trying to arrange a memorial for the lost crew members.

The second act is much looser. Each of the survivors has a different, often other-worldly story to tell, rather like The Weir, but it is their interaction, their interdependence, and their deliberate and inadvertent comedy that provides the meat of this play.

Richard Bean is a favourite playwright of mine, having given us One Man, Two Guv’nors, Jack Absolute Flies Again, many others, and my personal favourite England People Very Nice about the waves of immigrants to one East London area.

But this one, clearly close to his heart, is on a different political and emotional level. He loves these characters and where they come from, and, by the end of the play, so do we.

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