THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK at The Cubic Theatre
★★★
“a charming play and a story well-worth telling”
The Truth About Harry Beck – written and directed by Andy Burden – tells the story of draughtsman Henry (Harry) C. Beck who – in 1931 – published a radical new design for the London Underground Map. Inspired by the straight lines and angles of circuit diagrams, Beck reimagined the design not as a geographically accurate map but as a representation, particularly focusing on simplifying the complicated interchanges.
The play clearly spells out Harry’s (Simon Snashall) sad story. Striking a contentious copyright agreement with London Transport in the map’s initial print run, the designer was eventually ostracised and betrayed by the organisation that he so adored after three decades of free labour. Harry died in 1974, never receiving the credit he deserved for his bold reimagination of the tube system, putting the traveller’s comprehension at the core of the design. The production also explores the impact that Harry’s predicament had on his doting wife Nora (Ashley Christmas), who struggles to balance supporting her ailing mother with her husband’s obsessive work.
It wasn’t until 2001 that Beck finally got his rightful credit line on Underground maps, with no small thanks to his friend Ken Garland, who lent the show’s writer reams of letters between Harry and London Transport to inform the play’s script and some of which are read out on stage.
Christmas and Snashall play a very sweet Nora and Harry. They show particular chemistry in the play’s more sombre moments such as when Harry finally decides to give up his legal battle and retire to the New Forest with his wife.
Nora and Harry address the audience throughout the performance, inviting us into their home over tea and biscuits. There is one scene of direct audience participation which the cast ad lib well. Nora and Harry create a 3D representation of the latter’s early map design using coloured ribbon and ask the audience to shout out stations with key intersections. Another interesting touch is Nora declaring important inventions each year to demonstrate both time passing and to pay homage to the many revolutionary inventors who few will know the names of today.
Christmas does a particularly great job of cycling between various characters such as Harry’s boss and London Transport ex-CEO Frank Pick. At times, the transitions can be jarring but it is always clear when we have moved to a new scene and different characterisations.
The set (Sue Condie) places our characters in the Becks’ home. To the left, Harry’s workshop, piled with papers and tools and on the right a small living room which Nora typically occupies. Fake walls line the back of the stage and signs are hung up to indicate different settings such as a tube station or a ticket office.
However, the play’s ending does leave a little to be desired. Though the audience knows that Beck eventually gets the recognition he craved, the show would have benefitted with some further information about this journey. Harry died nearly thirty years before his credit was included on Underground maps and it would have been interesting to have this time briefly discussed.
In addition, a projector is used at the end of the play to showcase to show Harry’s glorious design across the back wall – it would have been great if the audience could see different images of the tube map to see its evolution, or examples of metro maps from across the world that have been based on Harry’s design principles. At times, the cast hold props such as a pocket map of Harry’s first design – a larger projection of this would have been well received. Or when Harry sees a tube map designed by rival Harold F. Hutchinson – the audience never sees this, but rather has it described.
The Truth About Harry Beck is a charming play and a story well-worth telling. Some more information about Harry’s road to recognition and greater use of tech and display to show the visual brilliance of his design would add further poignancy to this valuable tale of incredible talent almost lost to history.
THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK at The Cubic Theatre
Reviewed on 18th September 2024
by Flora Doble
Photography by Mark Douet
More of Flora’s reviews:
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG | ★★★★★ | DUCHESS THEATRE | September 2024
HASBIAN | ★★★★ | OMNIBUS THEATRE | June 2024
GISELLE: REMIX | ★★★★★ | PLEASANCE THEATRE | April 2024
COWBOYS AND LESBIANS | ★★★★ | PARK THEATRE | February 2024
THE ADDAMS FAMILY A MUSICAL COMEDY – LIVE IN CONCERT | ★½ | LONDON PALLADIUM | February 2024
GWYNETH GOES SKIING | ★★★ | PLEASANCE THEATRE | February 2024
THE ENFIELD HAUNTING | ★½ | AMBASSADORS THEATRE | January 2024
THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK
THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK
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