That’s just not possible, the Americans must be lying…
I'm a newbie at the tiny Jermyn Street Theatre to see Farm Hall.
1945, the period between VE and VJ day. An isolated Manor in rural England. We see six German nuclear and chemical physicists (including Heisenberg, Von Laue and Otto Hahn – in fact there were 10 held together, but only six in this play) who have been flown over from Germany and are being held, in some comfort.
Like the German Generals in the period before the end of the war, their conversations are being covertly recorded by the Security Service. Two already have Nobel prizes, a third will be awarded one shortly.
All have been working (but by no means collaboratively) on a German nuclear weapon. Two are Party members (one perhaps more reluctantly than the other).
The play starts with the six trying to relieve their boredom with play reading (Blythe Spirit, a delight!), chess and singing round a piano, but inevitably their conversation winds round to their own fate (whatever that might be) and to the work they were doing. It is clear there is antagonism between them.
And then – they are invited to listen to the broadcast of the news of Hiroshima – a technical achievement most had thought impossible, particularly from America.
The play examines how the scientists feel, about being beaten by the Americans to the prize, and about whether that prize was worth winning, or should ever have been won. Otto Hahn, in particular, who raised the first possibilities of a weapon, is devastated.
The play is informed by, but doesn’t slavishly follow, the transcripts and its ‘hero’, if that’s the right word, is Heisenberg who may (but it is his testimony) have helped persuade German authorities that developing an atomic weapon was not currently possible.
This is a tightly scripted, engaging and gripping play, very well and convincingly acted, on a tiny stage (the whole auditorium is hardly larger than a front room). Particularly strong are Alan Cox as Heisenberg and Forbes Masson as Otto Hahn