Springwood – Hampstead Theatre, London

Writer: Richard Nelson

Director: Richard Nelson

Springwood, a Hampstead Theatre World Premiere by Richard Nelson, is a disappointingly flat affair. Nelson bases his drama on his research about an informal meeting that took place between the British King and Queen and Franklin D. Roosevelt over a weekend in America. It’s summer 1939, and George VI and  Queen Elizabeth have been invited to stay at Springwood, the Roosevelt family estate.

It’s a visit that may well have cemented the special relationship between the States and the UK, but the play itself lacks real drama. There is plenty of mild drollery, a great deal centring on the fact that the King and Queen must attend a ‘hot dog picnic’. It’s a prospect that alarms the British couple. What are the protocols for such an event? They discuss at inordinate length not just how one might eat a hot dog (‘in one’s hands?’ the King inquires) but, more importantly, what we might now call the optics. It’s Elizabeth who senses there may be an underlying message conveyed by both the serving of this informal American cuisine and the British response to it. She is keenly sensitive to an implied insult.

The playwright himself lives close to Springwood and is at pains in the programme to explain the various Roosevelt properties on the land. Although Springwood itself was FDR’s main residence, it was in fact owned by his mother, Sara. This is another source of drollery in the play. In addition, Eleanor and FDR had by then come to an accommodation with their different needs, Eleanor turning a blind eye to FDR’s affair with this secretary Daisy, while enjoying the freedom of living for the most part in a separate property with two women friends. There are slightly schoolboyish sneers about these women friends and the not-particularly droll fact that they were engaged in furniture-making.

Nelson imagines a dramatic moment in which Bertie accidentally stumbles on FDR and Daisy in flagrante and feels he must return to apologise, but it’s all rather limp farce at this stage. Nelson’s main idea, however, is to give Bertie and FDR the opportunity to sit up late into the night to sympathise with each other’s issues – Bertie’s stammer and FDR’s paralysis. In a sentimental scene, the two men bond over their vulnerabilities, and Bertie tells FDR he’s like the father he never had.

Tom Piper’s design doesn’t add much. Where there would have been an opportunity to suggest the lawns of Springwood which roll down to the river, all we see are bits of furniture belonging to otherwise undelineated interiors. There’s rather too much busy shifting of tables and lamps between scenes, but to little effect. Half the stage remains in darkness, and apart from the occasional sound of night animals, there is little attempt to create a summer night – something that could be so evocative.

Andrew Havill as Bertie certainly looks and sounds the part. Are all modern royals destined to be versions of the former Prince Charles? Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, is given a Claire-Foy-like sprightliness by Rebecca Night. There is no suggestion of the dog-loving Queen Mother she will become, nor indeed of her fondness for Dubonnet.

Robert Lindsay makes a likeable FDR, while Jemma Redgrave’s Eleanor is given a glamorous makeover. The Roosevelts’ two women friends, Missy and Daisy (Teresa Banham and Rachel Pickup) are similarly glamorous – so much so that it’s hard to tell them apart.

Richard Nelson directs his own work at what is often a glacial pace.

Runs until 25 July 2026