Review: ROCK 'N' ROLL, Hampstead Theatre

During its original run, real life happenings threatened to overshadow the fictional: Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett - whose presence and music is felt throughout Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll - sadly died in Cambridge where he was born and where this epochal play of cultural and political revolution is set over several decades. 

Well, Stoppard would like us to think it is about those subjects but, as ever, it is more about him finding clever ways to show off his clever mind through highbrow discussions and elaborate dramatic metaphors. 

When it debuted in 2006, it was something of an event. Opening night was attended by Mick Jagger (whose music plays out at the end) and Václav Havel, the first post-Communist president of Czechoslovakia and, later, the first president of the newly formed Czech Republic. Neither put in an appearance on press night at this revival at Hampstead Theatre - Havel passed away in 2011 and the 80-year-old Jagger is probably busy preparing for the Stones’ Hackney Diamonds tour next year - but, perhaps because of the success of Stoppard's more recent Leopaldstadt, there was still a real sense of occasion.

The play takes time to introduce us to the characters - many of whom are academics either at the university or on their way there - especially the central figure of Max Morrow (played at the Royal Court by Succession’s Brian Cox and here by Nathanial Parker). We first meet him in 1968 as he debates with his Czech PhD student Jan (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) about the merits of Communism. Max is very much of the old school, justifying Soviet Russia’s recent invasion of Jan’s home country in ideological terms and metaphorically peering through red-tinted glasses at all those around him and the world at large. In contrast, Jan is a socialist who goes along with his mentor but his passion is more for music than Marxism.

When Jan returns to Czechoslovakia armed only with his lofty principles and a suitcase full of his favourite records, Stoppard begins to split the action, comparing and contrasting the diverse worlds of Cambridge and Prague and how the events of 1968 cause their paths of these two to diverge over time. We see Max’s wife Eleanor succumb to cancer and their daughter Esme step up as carer while looking after her own daughter Alice. The decline in Max’s health is mirrored by the decline in his faith in his old political ideas, even going as far as saying that he could see himself voting for Margaret Thatcher.

Jan, initially a supporter of the regime, is increasingly harassed by the authorities and is eventually imprisoned. Throughout, he clings to his love of music and worships the real-life group Plastic People Of The Universe. Only when the band - and later himself - are arrested do his principles bend and change. Meanwhile in Cambridge, we see Max take part in some highbrow discussions around the works of the poet Sappho and whether it is a brain or a mind that sits in our heads. 

Under Nina Raine's fluent direction, Parker is a solid presence throughout as the ever-tetchy Morrow. As a man never happier than when excoriating all and sundry, he throws himself into the verbal eviscerations with a real passion. Opposite him, Fortune-Lloyd is a joy to watch as he goes from playful youth to wizened adult. Their arcs are the dramatic bedrock of this work and both excel in making this long play fly along. While Stoppard struggles here to give his female characters the same love and attention he pours into Max and Jan, Nancy Carroll is a real treat in the dual role of Eleanor and the adult Esme while Phoebe Horn adds bounce and energy throughout.

Stoppard smartly finishes Rock ‘n’ Roll in 1990, the start of a decade bookended by the fall of Communism and 9/11. It was, in historical terms at least, a golden period where the threat of nuclear was was lifted and the chief concerns were obesity and holes in the ozone layer. Compared to what came before and after that period, it was a relatively halcyon era. One can only hope that such a time will come to pass again.

Rock 'n' Roll continues at Hampstead Theatre until 27 January 2024

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

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