Finborough Theatre

A unique doublebill of two one act plays not performed in the UK for many years.

Before Trafalgar – Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, this wonderful one act play by James Lansdale Hodson (author of the First World War play Red Night which is revived at the Finborough Theatre in November) charts the night before the greatest sea battle in British history on board Nelson’s ship. Whilst Nelson plots to discover the most ingenious way to defeat the might of the French, he must also contend with issues closer to hand…

Waterloo – A one act play by the creator of Sherlock Holmes and sometime local resident, Arthur Conan Doyle. Sergeant Gregory Brewster is the very last survivor of those who fought at the Battle of Waterloo – and is now living in a pitiful situation, penniless and forgotten. When his grand-niece and a local sergeant come to visit, memories of old wounds and friends lost come flooding back… As the last survivors of the First World War pass away, a moving tribute to the forgotten survivors of war...
Waterloo was one of the greatest roles of Sir Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted. This production commemorates the centenary of his death.

James Lansdale Hodson (1891-1956) was a Manchester born novelist and playwright. His novel Return to the Wood was adapted for the stage by John Wilson as Hamp, and in turn filmed by Joseph Losey as King and Country. Red Night has not been seen since the 1936 West End production with Robert Donat and John Mills.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh and remains best known as the creator of one of fiction’s m,ost enduring characters, Sherlock Holmes. As a schoolboy, the young Arthur Conan Doyle spent his summer holidays with his uncle, the Punch illustrator Richard Doyle, in Finborough Road…

Directed by Rae Mcken whose previous credits include The Government Inspector (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), Deadlock (NYT), Airswimming (Salisbury Playhouse), Romeo and Juliet (Young Vic Studio), Women Beware Women (Landor Theatre), Black Ey’d Susan (Astor Theatre), Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home (mac & National Tour) and The Dumb Waiter and The Dwarfs (Man in the Moon). As an Assistant Director, she has assisted at the Salisbury Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse, Young Vic and the West Yorkshire Playhouse for such directors as Douglas Rintoul, Josette Bushell-Mingo and Ian Brown.

The Press on The War Plays
"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...
How good an actor [Laura] 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."
Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate.com

"This short but enthralling evening (80 minutes including an interval) commemorates two centenaries: the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the death of Sir Henry Irving in 1905. But it also marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the 190th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo!
England’s greatest tragedian, Irving had great critical success when he first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Story of Waterloo, bringing humour and pathos to this 25-minute sketch of the last hours of Corporal Gregory Brewster.
His role was the 90-year old veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, whose wandering thoughts recall the day when he fought for England under the eye of Wellington, bravely driving a powder wagon through a blazing compound.
Although the first performance was in Bristol in 1893, the London critics were on hand to acclaim a small but exquisite addition to the actor’s repertoire, a vivid portrait of senility and death in a moment of recollected triumph — although Bernard Shaw thought all the credit should have gone to Conan Doyle for writing ‘a good acting piece’.
Tim Barlow, who plays the nonagenarian, himself spent 15 years in the Army before embarking on a long and distinguished acting career, notably with Theatre Complicité. Not just an actor but a theatrical force of nature, he brings a lifetime of experience to his hugely engaging performance of an old soldier who suddenly attracts the reverent attention of the local division of the Scots Guards.
Rae Mcken’s revival, neatly deploying Anna Jones’s setting for the Finborough’s current main production, The Freedom of the City, also benefits from the attractive pairing of Mat Laroche as a young sergeant and Laura Freedman making a promising professional stage debut as the old man’s pretty young housekeeper, wide-eyed with wonder.
George Dalton completes the cast as the Guards’ colonel in mufti, whose promise to give Brewster the benefit of a funeral with full military honours, leads to a swift but triumphantly gratified demise.
The evening opens with James Lansdale Hodson’s short play, Before Trafalgar, set aboard HMS Victory in 1805, a fascinating insight into the mindset of Lord Nelson on the eve of battle.
This revival will excite particular interest because of Hodson’s better known play Red Night, about mud and blood-spattered squaddies before the Somme offensive in 1915, which drew favourable comparisons with Journey’s End when it was recently revived at the Finborough.
In this case comparisons will inevitably be with Terence Rattigan’s subsequent Nelsonian saga A Bequest to the Nation, recently revived at the Jermyn Street Theatre.
But where Rattigan offered a romantic view of the night before battle, Hodson presents a more plainly nautical image of events, giving absorbing attention to Nelson’s strategic battle plans, and to the need for a convincing victory — for total annihilation of the French armada.
This production will also excite interest for a stirring performance of extraordinary authority from Christian Olliver, a recent graduate from Central, who brings compelling conviction to his portrayal of the 47-year old Nelson.
Interesting personal touches include the dabbing of rose water on the ‘blind’ eye and his firm, unruffled grasp of command when faced with Dalton’s Collingwood, James Finnegan’s disgraced Calder, and a group of seasoned Captains of the Fleet, led by Tom Foster’s bluff, companionable Hardy.
Alas, there are few opportunities left to see these two plays in performance, playing only Sunday and Monday evenings until 19th December. But for London theatregoers they are certainly worth the trip.
John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide