A THING OF BEAUTY
Theatre at the Tabard
★★★★
“refuses to pass judgement, leaving instead a residue of discomfort that invites reflection on where one has turned a blind eye”
A Thing of Beauty confronts head-on a discomfiting question: should artistic brilliance be allowed to exist independently of moral responsibility? Writers Wendy Oberman and Jonathan Lewis have created a gripping drama in which ambition and manipulation battle truth and integrity, and the audience is caught squarely in the firing line.
Set in October 1972, the play imagines an in-depth BBC interview with Leni Riefenstahl. She was a highly-accomplished German filmmaker during the Nazi period. Her revolutionary techniques inspired George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, yet her legacy was permanently over-shadowed by her service to Nazi ideology.
Imogen Stubbs is magnetic in her portrayal of a woman whose charm, vanity and self-justification coexist in uneasy balance. Referring to herself in the third person throughout, Leni simultaneously elevates her achievements and distances herself from the uncomfortable truth they represent. It is hard to feel much sympathy, despite her protestations about a difficult childhood and an all-consuming creative drive. That she achieved such creative dominance within a regime that prescribed domesticity for women adds a further uncomfortable layer, one the play leaves the audience to sit with.
Tony Bell is a convincing Harry, the BBC interviewer who must maintain professional focus whilst simultaneously confronting his own demons. He is, by turns, vulnerable to Leni’s considerable charms and fiercely critical of her motives. The interview becomes an electric psychological duel: intimate, taut and genuinely unsettling.
The ensemble of Tony Boncza, Harry Bradley, Thomas Craig, Sophie McMahon and Harry Rundle provide a compelling dramatic frame; their on-stage presence as waiting crew members sharpens the sense that everyone here has something to conceal. The production’s most pointed observation is that Leni is far from alone in placing ambition (dressed up as art) above everything else.
Juliette Demoulin’s spare set is stripped back to essentials, letting the verbal exchanges carry full weight. Mark Dymock’s lighting shifts with quiet precision between the clinical and the conspiratorial, while Simon Slater’s understated sound design steadily deepens the creeping unease. Director Jonathan Lewis, who also co-wrote the piece, keeps pacing taut throughout, resisting the temptation to over-signpost the ethical questions and allowing their implications to surface with admirable restraint.
That restraint is ultimately the production’s defining strength. A Thing of Beauty refuses to pass judgement, leaving instead a residue of discomfort that invites reflection on where one has turned a blind eye, sidestepped the truth or been complicit. Produced by Denise Silvey for Cahoots Theatre Company, this assured world premiere offers no comfort, only the unsettling recognition that history’s most beautiful images may conceal its most troubling truths.
A THING OF BEAUTY
Theatre at the Tabard
Reviewed on 26th February 2026
by Elizabeth Botsford
Photography by Matt Hunter
