Review: FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMANN, Theatre Royal Bath

The English language premiere of Farewell Mister Haffman at Theatre Royal Bath’s intimate Ustinov studio is the most gripping, funny and startling play you’re likely to see this year.

French writer Jean-Phillipe Daguerre offers a great lesson in how to crank up the tension and keep the audience on edge throughout the 90-minute running time – with no interval so you can escape with an ice cream and much-needed drink.

There are no easy escape routes in Jeremy Sams’s adept adaptation of Daguerre’s award-winning play, Adieu Monsieuf Haffmann (four Molieres, including best new play) that opened in 2017. Four years later, it was turned into a film starring Daniel Auteuil.

Inspired by the real-life tale of Daguerre’s grandparents hiding Jews in their home in the south of France during World War Two, the French comedy drama artfully mixes fact and fiction.

After the Nazis invade France, Joseph Haffmann (performed by a solid, but vulnerable Nigel Lindsay) gets his family out to Switzerland. Haffmann places his jewellery shop in the hands of non-Jewish employee, Pierre Vigneau (Ciaran Owens, who does a mean tap dance), and requests he and his wife, Isabelle (an excellent, understated performance by Lisa Dillon) move into the house next to the shop.

The stakes ramp up. However, Haffman says there’s one condition: the Vigneaus have to hide Haffmann in the cellar.  Then sterile Pierre comes up with a proviso of his own: he expects Haffmann to sleep with his wife so she can get pregnant.

Agonisingly, time passes, with the action split between designer Paul Wills’s two spare spaces on either side of the stage. The three characters share uncomfortable evening meals when Haffmann’s briefly allowed out of the cellar. Pierre becomes jealous of Isabelle’s monthly visits to the cellar to conceive a longed-for child.

All this jealousy, fear and confusion is reflected in what’s happening outside via admirable sound effects (by composer and sound designer Giles Thomas) of gunfire, goosestepping soldiers, screams, growling dogs and real antisemitic broadcasts. Tim Mitchell’s lighting design adds to the mix with shadowy corners, a spotlight on Pierre’s frantic tap dancing and a screen overlaying a Jewish yellow star upon the Nazi emblem.

Just when you think you can’t take anymore, Pierre announces he’s invited the charming but disturbing Nazi ambassador (a real-life character) Otto Abetz, and his gregarious wife, Suzanne (Josefina Gabrielle), for a simple kitchen supper.

Alexander Hanson is engaging as the handsome and unsettling Nazi officer. And Gabrielle’s splendid as flamboyant Suzanne, with her bawdy jokes about the dessert Paris Brest and her devouring of a suckling pig’s ears and tail. “I like a bit of tail, not unlike my husband,” she drawls.

There are a couple of big reveals during the nerve-wracking dinner scene, delivered deliciously by an accomplished cast and admirable direction from Lindsay Posner. Many truths emerge – courage in the face of fear; money can’t replace love, family and dignity; and the lengths one will go to survive. Truths that resonate strongly today in 2023.

Farewell Mister Haffman works beautifully in the intimate environs of the 120-seat Ustinov studio, but could flourish just as well in larger spaces in the West End and around the UK. Where more audiences can be enthralled, amused and appalled in equal measure.

Farewell Mister Haffmann runs at Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio until September 23

Photo credit: Simon Annand

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