Under the Whaleback ( Archived )

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Direction: Richard Wilson, Design: Julian McGowan, Lighting: Johanna Town, Sound: Gareth Fry

Cast: Sophie Bleasdale, Matthew Dunster, Sam Kelly, Iain McKee, Ian Mercer, Richard Stacey, Alan Williams

Photography by John Haynes

Richard Beans new, Under the Whaleback, is about one particular aspect of heredity. And of the human spirit. Its the worst job in the world and only those what is born to it, what has gorrit in the blood, can do it says Cassidy, early in the first scene. Hes speaking about the job hes done all his life, working as a deckhand on a Hull trawler. His fathers father too; and so on, way back.

In three scenes, the play spans three generations. Cassidy is a nutcase on the one hand, a reckless drink but, on the other, hes a fate figure, a Flying Hullman. He knows he too will die at sea. He even knows that this will be the voyage on which he will die. In one simple act, handing over the duck suit that has saved him from drowning, he lays down his own life to save his sons. In due course, his son becomes a not-yet-ancient mariner.

The three scenes take us from 1965 via 1972 to 2002. The set is more or less the same: the crew quarters in the trawler. But in 2002 the trawler no longer goes to sea. The great bad days of Hull fishing are over, and shes literally a museum-piece. The most sensational plot twist occurs in this final scene – but the most haunting scene is the 1965 one, which brilliantly evokes how it was on the north Atlantic for four men on an especially grim voyage. One speech, in which a husband describes what its like to lie in bed at home with his wife, becomes the plays tender anchor, an image of contentment in love recalled from a great distance.

Richard Wilson directs a perfect production. As in all his work at the Court, he seems always to give his actors sureness, precision, colour. Alan Williams, Iain McKee, and Matthew Dunster lead a superb cast. Watching, listening, you forget theyre actors. You follow their characters with your heart in your mouth. And you learn new things – not just about the highs and lows of bravery and despair.

FINANCIAL TIMES 22nd April, Alastair Macaulay

Be warned. Watching Richard Beans tremendous new play, set on board the arctic trawlers that once sailed out of Hull, you could well run the risk of serious seasickness.

Julian McGowans atmospheric set of the crews living quarters beneath the focsle may not actually move as the boat hits rough weather, but it certainly feels as though it does in Richard Wilsons production. Gareth Fry has come up with a brilliant sound design of crashes bangs and howling winds, and the cast are flung all over the shop whenever the vessel hits a Greener, as big waves were known, in a force 11 gale. Once youve got your theatrical sea legs, the excitement is terrific.

The Royal Court has a great tradition of work plays – one thinks particularly of David Storeys The Contractor and The Changing Room – and this marvellous piece, which also put me in mind of the sea dramas of the young Eugene ONeill, belongs in the same exalted company. Bean announced himself with Toast a couple of years ago, a richly comic drama about the employees in a Hull bread factory, but this new piece sees him entering the premier league of young British dramatists.

The play is as tightly constructed as a ship built for rough weather. The dialogue has the salty tang of a brisk sea breeze, and you watch the drama, which spans almost four decades, utterly absorbed in the characters and their trials.

In the first scene, set aboard the trawler the Kingston Jet in 1965, the central character Darrell is a 17-year-old innocent embarking for the first time for the distant water of the arctic fishing grounds. Darrell finds himself befriended by a drunken old reprobate called Cassidy, who insists he is the boys natural father. The repercussions of this meeting, and the things Cassidy tells the young man then, finally come home to roost only in the last act, set in 2002, when Darrell meets the son of one of his former crewmates in yet another trawler.

This one, however, has now become a museum to a dead industry.

This rich, dramatically powerful play explores a wide variety of themes – the relations between fathers and their sons, which also touches on the nature versus nurture debate and genetic inheritance; the pride men take in hard, dangerous work, and the confusion and depression that ensues when such work is denied. But these themes emerge from utterly absorbing drama populated with richly-drawn characters.

The great central act, set during a tumultuous storm, with the trawlermen bantering, arguing and confronting the possible imminence of their own mortality, is absolutely masterly. The jokes are outstanding, too, and so is the dramatic suspense, both here and in the last act, which combines shocking brutality with a beautiful sense of grace under pressure. Bean cares for his characters, some of whom it doesnt seem sentimental to describe as heroes.

Richard Wilson, who, far from having one foot in the grave, has become one of our finest directors of new drama, does this magnificent work proud in an enthralling, beautifully-acted production. Alan Williams is superbly compelling both as the wild, drunk Cassidy, and as his movingly stoical son Darrell in later life. And there is terrific work from Matthew Dunster playing two generations of crazy, mixed-up kids, from Iain McKee as the younger Darrell, and Sam Kelly, who offers comic delight as a garrulous, cackling old sea dog.

I cant recommend this thrilling, savagely funny and deeply affecting play too highly.

DAILY TELEGRAPH 16th April, Charles Spencer

The plays central strength lies in the long middle act, the storm scene. The relationships of the five men cooped up together- often abrasive, sometimes explosive- are beautifully caught. The dialogue is often effortlessly funny. And all five actors, from Iain McKees Darrel to Sam Kellys humorous old salt, seem entirely at one with their parts. You admire their grit; you sense their desperation.

At the same time the pummelling of the storm – the sudden lurches, the flickering lamps – is superbly conveyed by Richard Wilsons direction, with the help of Julian McGowans design, Johanna Towns lighting and Gareth Frys sound design. Its a remarkable feat of staging, and it produces an effect of physical immediacy which I dont believe film or television could match.

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 20 April, John Gross

Richard Beans tough, harrowing but beautiful new play unexpectedly beautiful because it is so harrowing- is about Hull trawlermen, their lives, their deaths, their survival. Alan Williams leads a first-rate cast, and Richard Wilsons direction is tough and full of humanity.

SUNDAY TIMES 20 April, John Peter

In the tiny confines of the Theatre Upstairs, Richard Wilsons astonishing production and Julian McGowans design create a powerful sense of life in a sea-tossed sidewinder.

THE GUARDIAN 15 April, Michael Billington