Theatre review: Song From Far Away

The next transfer to Hampstead Theatre, this time to the main house, is Kirk Jameson's production of Song From Far Away from Manchester. This is one of those shows that took me a certain amount of effort to try and see without the context of having seen the original production. Not just because of the particularly memorable artistic choice that led it to inspire the Schlong From Far Away award in my yearly roundups, but also because Simon Stephens' mournful monologue was written specifically for its original director Ivo van Hove and star Eelco Smits. But this does mean there's a whole new dimension of seeing how the script bears up when taken away from the creatives Stephens envisioned it for, and seen with fresh eyes. So in Jameson's production, Ingrid Hu designs a large, luxurious, but still impersonal Amsterdam hotel room for Will Young's Willem to stay in when he returns from New York to the city of his birth.

Theatre review: Song from Far Away

After making for the most celebrated venue/director pairing of last year, Ivo van Hove returns to the Young Vic; surprisingly, given he's been a big name in the Netherlands and internationally long before becoming a London favourite, this is his first time directing a new play, having made his name deconstructing classics. But Simon Stephens wrote Song from Far Away especially for van Hove and actor Eelco Smits: It's the monologue of Willem, a 34-year-old Dutch man who's lived in New York for the last 12 years. The play describes a trip back to Amsterdam that may be his first in all that time, and only happens when his much younger brother Pauli dies suddenly of an undiagnosed genetic heart condition. The visit back home will be a difficult one, and not just because there's a funeral at the heart of it: His family view Willem as a cold character who deserted them. (Some potentially NSFW imagery after the text break.)