Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme **** TNT
The Hampstead Theatre’s 50th Anniversary season really hits its stride with a fine revival of Frank McGuinness’s award-winning drama which was first staged here in 1986. Compassionate, hard-hitting and sometimes very funny, it follows (in flashback) a handful of Ulster volunteers during the Great War, from their first days as raw recruits to their final stand at the Battle of the Somme.
Yet it isn’t just the war with Germany which concerns the playwright (surprisingly, he comes from a Catholic background) but the vehement antipathy with which these Protestant Ulstermen view their Papist countrymen. United, ostensibly, only by their religion, his eight privates are a very mixed bunch – ranging from a preacher to a pair of Belfast townies, to Owen Sharpe’s colour-blind weaver (whose chirpy disposition is battered into terror by what he has witnessed at the front) and to the cynical black sheep of a privileged family (who welcomes the prospect of death and is, ironically, the sole survivor).
Richard Dormer is outstanding as the mercurial, trouble-maker who finds brief happiness with Eugene O’Hare’s solid blacksmith. But John Dove’s production is commendably acted throughout and it proves a lasting, poetic tribute to young soldiers who died, ultimately, not just for their beliefs or for their country, but for the men who stood next to them in the trenches.
Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU (020 7722 9301) until 18th July (£15-£25 -under 26’s £10)
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