Howard Brenton’s latest trip into history looks at the man best known as Lawrence of
Arabia - although as the title
Lawrence After Arabia suggests, it doesn't
look at T.E. Lawrence's most famous deeds except in flashback. In fact most of the
action takes place in the home of George Bernard Shaw, where Lawrence (Jack Laskey)
liked to hide away from the press, despite the fact that his friend's own fame meant
reporters were rarely far away. Jeff Rawle plays Shaw, or possibly Captain Birdseye,
and Geraldine James his wife Charlotte, who takes on the job of editing Lawrence's
autobiography
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and discovers more in it than she'd
expected. John Dove, who's directed Brenton's work at the Globe before, now moves to
the playwright's other regular haunt on Hampstead's main stage, and a story that
opens with Lawrence a national hero after his victories in the Middle East during
World War I.
