Review: THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY BECK, The Cubic Theatre, London Transport Museum

Obsessive behaviour takes many forms, from philatelists hunting down rare stamps, ambitious chefs refining gastronomic dishes and online gamers playing through the night to reach the next level.

Designer Harry Beck's own brand of perfectionism, as witnessed in a new play at the new Cubic Theatre at London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, is to create the first London Underground map. And then spend most of his life perfecting it.

The Truth About Harry Beck, a 70-minute two-hander written and directed by Andy Burden, artistic and executive director of the Natural Theatre Company, was first performed in Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio back in 2021.

The play's essentially about a love triangle between Beck, his long-suffering wife Nora and the London Underground map. The map (or should I say diagrammatic representation, as designer and technical draughtsman Beck insists on calling it) frequently seizes Beck's attentions which should be directed at Nora, a fellow London Underground employee Beck meets while singing in the company choir.

There are warm performances from Simon Snashall (Humans, The IT Crowd, Unforgotten) portraying gentle, preoccupied Harry, and Ashley Christmas (See How They Run, Becoming Hattie,) who energetically plays Nora as well as all the other parts in the play. She shifts abruptly, like a train avoiding a deer on the tracks, from Nora to various secretaries and bosses at London Underground's headquarters.

The story runs along two lines. One is Harry's struggle to get the now much-loved and much-lauded map, based on a circuit diagram, accepted. The other shows Harry and Nora's developing relationship.

Sue Condie's set is simple, with Harry's drawing board and a few props, such as a coat rack and standard lamp, representing the couple's home in Leyton (where theres' now a blue plaque commemorating Harry's achievements). Costume design by Anna Dixon takes us back to the days when men like Harry wore red knitted vests and grey trousers and the Noras leant towards practical cardigans and a string of pearls.

Boffins will enjoy references to new lines and new stations coming to fruition (which Harry eagerly add to his ever-changing map), along with the excitement of how best to display interchanges –– stations, like Kings Cross and Paddington, where several lines intersect. On press night (coincidentally the 50th anniversary of Harry Beck's death), the audience enthusiastically shouted out the names of interchanges when prompted by Harry.

The script is peppered with inventions and facts that drive us through the years when Harry suffers three major rejections of his map. Anything from the arrival of Spam in 1937, the ballpoint pen and new train stock in 1938 and heavy-duty hand cleaner Swarfega in 1947.

This might sound rather nerdy, but it becomes fascinating – and often poignant when people huddle on Tube platforms as V2 rockets rain on London in 1942, for instance.

A notable date for Nora is 1960. She finally receives a belated wedding present, as promised by Harry. But it's a plot spoiler if I reveal what she gets. Let's just say it was worth waiting for.

The Truth About Harry Beck goes down like a warm cup of tea and is as reassuring as a comfy pair of slippers. The production has heart and is a love letter to Harry's map that's so intuitive we feel it was always meant to be exactly like that. The evening with Harry, Nora and the map is a bittersweet pleasure in a new venue that hopefully will transport audiences on more excursions in the future.

The Truth About Harry Beck runs until November 10 at London Transport Museum's Cubic Theatre in Covent Garden

Photo credit: Mark Douet

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