Writer: Bea Roberts
Director: Paul Robinson
Immediately, on entering the theatre, one is struck by the set: magnificent, detailed and, taking out a generous proportion of the In the Round seating, very unusual for Scarborough. The bridge and wheelhouse dominate above, the galley below has a seating area surrounded by the ship’s prow and, to each side, small areas with telephones and, in one case, maps serve for the land-based scenes, the whole thing a triumph for Jessica Curtis.
It’s as though Bea Roberts and Paul Robinson feel the need to come up with something solid to anchor the crazy, absurdly heroic story they have to tell. In 1991 Captain Jack Lammiman set sail for the Arctic with what is described as “a motley crew” on board the barely shipshape Helga Maria to plant a plaque on Jan Mayen Island in honour of the 18th/19th century whaler William Scoresby who sailed out of Whitby further north than anyone had penetrated at that time. The crew in Roberts’ version is reduced to five, with one fictitious character and a couple of the more experienced sailors excised, but Lammiman’s achievement in taking his ship to Jan Mayen and successfully returning remains remarkable.
So was he a great hero? Not to the Admiralty who scoured the seas to try to find the illegal vessel, by now black-painted and with its bowsprit removed, nor to the magistrate who had to sentence him on his return. Keith Bartlett places him poised between hero and charlatan, full of tall tales and bluster, obsessed with his ship and William Scoresby rather than human contact, but at the same time commanding – and successful. Typically he doesn’t regard himself as successful because he failed to place the plaque on the mountain he had set his heart on!
Roberts is highly concerned with restoring the place of the crew rather than contributing to the myth of Captain Jack. The opening is a little too frantic and Edna Whelan’s first appearance a little too comic book, but Jacqueline Naylor gradually sculpts the character of the Whitby pensioner who joins the expedition for a little adventure. Pat Stubbs (Jacqueline King), likewise a widow, from the West Country, responds to Lammiman’s appeal for crew and emerges as posh and practical. The scene where the two share their thoughts on what the trip has meant to them is the most moving in the play. The Reverend Paul Burkitt (Duncan MacInnes), initially burdened by his ignorance of sailing and by too much irrelevant knowledge, goes through crises, both of confidence and genuine danger, and returns to his flock a changed man.
Kieran Foster as Lewis Turnbull, the one invented crew member, is initially secretive, prone to contempt for his fellows, outbursts of anger and threats to desert. His integration into the crew is symbolic of how they develop into a unit (not including Captain Jack).
Louise Mai Newberry has the best time of any of them, leaping from character to character, notably Sunny, running a caravan park while getting calls from Captain Jack and contacting the Norwegian Embassy, and the logical Scots Department of Transport official who details the ship’s faults and vows to bring Jack to justice – Newberry does a nifty turn as a Norwegian weather station member, too!
In retrospect the confusion one feels about the tone of the play, comic or serious, is probably deliberate. Bea Roberts’ comparison of these events to an Ealing comedy seems totally apposite.
Runs until 2nd November 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Absurd and heroic
