Portraits

Augustus John’s ability as portrait artist won him the admiration of fellow artists, public recognition and the Order of Merit. William Douglas Home’s play presents various points in the Bohemian artist’s turbulent life from 1944 – 1961 through a reconstruction of sittings with three of his subjects (all played by the same actor) – General Bernard Montgomery, fellow artist Mathew Smith and designer Cecil Beaton. This keenly observed, sensitive play is finely interwoven with the thread of John’s gradually developing pacifism – from his certainty in spring 1944 that Monty’s young ADC will not survive the second front, to war’s devastating effect on Matthew Smith, to John’s vibrant fear of the nuclear nightmare and his own approaching death.

In a theatrical year that has seen the successful reappraisal of successful West End playwrights such as Terence Rattigan and the Finborough Theatre’s own rediscovery of Emlyn Williams, Portraits rediscovers the work of William Douglas Home, one of the West End’s most successful post-war dramatists. As always, the Finborough Theatre has avoided the more obvious anniversaries of writers such as Rattigan and Tennessee Williams to commemorate the life and work of leading artist Augustus John.

Directed by the Finborough Theatre’s acclaimed Resident Designer in his directorial debut, this is the first production of Portraits since its world premiere at Malvern and its subsequent West End transfer in 1987, when it was directed by John Dexter, and starred Keith Michell, Simon Ward and Stephen Boxer.