SPRINGWOOD
Hampstead Theatre
★★★
“a sturdy bio-drama from a master in connecting the past to the present”
It’s 1939, war is in the air and we are in Hyde Park. But not in London. Hyde Park is the family estate of the Roosevelts where their sprawling country home Springwood is. President Franklin D and his wife Eleanor, together – uncomfortably – with his mother, the actual owner of Springwood, are about to host the first-ever visit of a reigning British monarch to the United States. A picnic is planned. It seems a trivial detail, but how will the royal couple get on with hot dogs and beer?
Richard Nelson’s new play is enjoying its world premiere at Hampstead Theatre and it’s a suitable place and audience for this clever dramatisation of a pivotal moment in history. It’s job is to explore relationships. Upfront is the ‘special’ relationship between the UK and the US which this moment in time may enshrine. The US was late into the first world war. Can the King George V and Queen Elizabeth count on that country’s support again should conflict erupt in Europe?
Also in the foreground of the drama are the multiple personal relationships: the President and his wife; Eleanor and Mother; the King and Queen; and Franklin D Roosevelt’s other ‘special’ relationships. Under all of this lie the more abstract relationships: between leaders and their people, then the same leaders with their respective disabilities.
Springwood is based on Nelson’s own screenplay for the 2012 film ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’, which had been observed to be good potentially for presentation on stage. After Stanley Tucci withdrew as director (too busy) Nelson stepped in. Given his own history of directing his own plays as well as writing interconnected family-cycle plays, this was a sound decision. His ensemble-naturalism background suits this material which could easily become a soap opera in the wrong hands.
It’s a strong ten-person cast, with Robert Lindsay and Jemma Redgrave secure in their roles as the President and Eleanor. To my mind, however, Andrew Havill as King George (‘Bertie’) gives the outstanding performance. There were moments when one could swear King Charles had taken on the part, so good was his characterisation. The slight physical awkwardness, the whisper of Bertie’s ever-present but mostly hidden stutter, the sense of someone who really understands the symbolism of the hot dog moment, unlike his wife (Rebecca Night) to whom this has to be carefully explained by Eleanor.
The creative team have chosen to set the play ‘in the round’ with a dark black background into which the figures melt. This enables us to focus on the conversations which are at the core of the work. Scene changes are punctuated by the actors moving brown furniture round. Rather strangely the play opens with all the characters onstage breaking up and then rearranging the set.
But then this is the main action and without it we might find the play a little static. It is a subtle piece important to pay as much attention to what is not being said – and when – as to what is outspoken. Oft-repeated is ‘the walls are very thin’ and somehow this becomes a mantra for the unsaid and the overheard in people’s lives. And there are also many moments of laugh-out-loud humour . Bertie’s outburst when his wife accuses him of being like his brother, when he threatens to shove hot dogs ‘up his nostrils and in his ears’ as well as in his mouth is a comedy gem.
Devotees of Hampstead Theatre will enjoy the wordiness, the history and the focus on what is revealed in conversation. It might not play as well in a less literary world or among people less interested in the history of diplomatic relations between the US and the UK. This is a sturdy bio-drama from a master in connecting the past to the present, which it undoubtedly does
SPRINGWOOD
Hampstead Theatre
Reviewed on 29th June 2026
by Louise Sibley
Photography by Manuel Harlan
