Theatre Royal Haymarket, London – until 3 June 2017. Reviewed by Andrew Kennedy
There is something about Betjeman’s writing that speaks to our senses; transporting us through 20th century Britain, reminding us of links to the past. It is captured excellently by Hugh Whitemore’s melding together of this great writer’s poetry which is delivered delightfully as ‘Sand in the Sandwiches’ by Edward Fox at the Haymarket.
Fox opens describing lime and gin; pine woods; unadopted roads; the golf club band and sensuous summer touch of Joan Hunter Dunn in 1940s rural Surrey. Air raids brought Betjeman and Joan together although not, it is explained, permanently.
We’re told of Betjeman’s home guard officer and Great War veteran whose prior experience and advice to Betjeman is don’t shoot at enemy aircraft because they might shoot back at you.
We’re then carried back to the shiny green lino floor reflecting the hearth fire of Betjeman’s childhood. Dark cupboards are described nearby, where it is hinted, a naughty Betjeman may have been detained.
We learn of Betjeman’s father who was not afraid to retain the double ‘n’ ending of the family surname which, having survived at least four generations in England, is deemed too Germanic by Betjemann’s Highgate playmates during the first World War; leading Betjeman to drop one ‘n’ for the rest of his life. A father too who had no qualms explaining buggery when he discovers his young son has been corresponding, innocently, with Lord Alfred Douglas.
Then off to Oxbridge with his teddy ‘Archibald’ where despite his Anglican love of churches he fails divinity, falls out with CS Lewis, his tutor, and is sent down.
He and Fox are rhyming raconteurs who draw us in and captivate to the extent one feels almost sorry for the defecting Burgess and Maclean who miss a dinner party attended by Betjeman.
But it is the changing landscape of Britain that is so vividly depicted: from Devon’s sandstone cliffs, Kent’s hop fields, the faith and flint of East Anglican churches in a watery landscape and wispy salty Cornish mist that Fox reminds us Betjeman loved. As Britain moved post war to a planned country in the nuclear age Betjeman’s cry to preserve the old rings out.
In the end he succumbs to a slow decline from Parkinsons asking: what now?
Bequeathing a positive joie de vivre, with more dawdling over the sand in the sandwiches than is apparent in Betjeman’s work, this play charms as much as the old master poet.
At the Haymarket until 3 June – see www.sandinthesandwiches.com for more details