How to be Brave – Godber Studio, Hull Truck Theatre

Writer: Louise Beech

Director: Kate Veysey

In 1943 Able Seaman Colin Armitage was one of 14 members of the crew of SS Lulworth Hill (out of a total of 47) crammed on a small liferaft after the sinking of the ship by a U-Boat. Remarkably, after 50 days, two were still alive, having survived on tiny supplies of food and water, coped with the predatory presence of sharks and hung on to their sanity. These two were Armitage and his friend Seaman Shipwright Kenneth Cooke.

Their story was well known, both men receiving medals at Buckingham Palace and Kenneth Cooke writing a book about his experiences based on the log he kept, and it became an object of fascination to Colin’s grand-daughter, the writer Louise Beech. In 2007 her daughter Katy was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and, to distract her during insulin injections, Louise told her the story of the Lulworth Hill, Colin and Ken.

In real life Katy gained inspiration to be brave from the story, but in the playHow to be BraveLouise Beech fictionalises herself and her daughter as Natalie and Rose and adds a gently supernatural connection between Colin and Rose, him seeing her in dreams/hallucinations and her eventually crossing over to meet him as a protector watching over her. The play, the most ambitious work to date of Other Lives Productions, based in Beverley, is less than halfway through a tour of theatres and village halls in Yorkshire, culminating in five nights at the East Riding Theatre.

The play can be reckoned a partial success. The stage is divided into two: a representation of the liferaft (no attempt at naturalism) and Natalie’s home, very much child-friendly, Emily Clay producing a design that will sit equally well in a village hall.

Jacob Ward (Colin) and Lex Stephenson (Ken) convey the increasing desperation of the two men vividly, at first convincingly summoning up by word and gesture one or two individuals among their shipmates who died during the ordeal: John Arnold, the ultra-religious apprentice, First Officer Scown to whose widow the two delivered his signet ring. Later, hollow-eyed and hanging on to reality, both take turns in saving each other from despair, hallucination and thoughts of suicide. Beech is well aware that days on end of two chaps not saying much is not the stuff of theatre and cleverly leaves gaps of days on end filled by Natalie’s narration.

The difficulty comes with the events in Natalie’s house. Livy Potter is given the near-impossible task of impersonating a 10-year-old girl and her array of shouts and pouts, of excessive facial expression and wilful refusal, soon outstays its welcome, as does Alice Potter’s hysterically loving mother. As Rose becomes braver and more involved in the men’s story, both settle into more restrained conviction. Alison Shaw is the voice of sanity as the nurse who keeps a special eye in Rose.

Kate Veysey balances the two performance spaces and manages to convey a sense of the two men’s actions in heaving bodies over the side, fighting off sharks, etc., while Pete Fletcher’s music enhances the overall effect.

Reviewed on 2nd November 2024. On tour in Yorkshire.