+ ON TOUR BONUS: London Transport Museum Covent Garden theatre

With Political Overtones!

There is still time to see The Truth About Harry Beck, a remarkable 65-minute two-hander at the London Transport Museum’s basement Cubic Theatre.  Originally set to close on 10 November it has now been extended until 5 January.

According to the original press release the playlet had been inspired by the culture and creativity of the West End and an example of how London Transport Museum is expanding its programming for new audiences. The truth however may have political overtones, the idea of turning a book by Ken Garland originally called Mr Becks Underground Map could be seen as a quiet ‘dig’ against the Mayor’s revision of the London Overground.  That it is not.  A pity. Even Harry Beck could not have redesigned that topographical mess.

Written and directed by Andy Burden the play stars Simon Snashall (Hancock’s Last Half Hour) as Beck, and Ashley Christmas, his wife Norma, who offers a variety of other parts, some a mere few words, and others masculine.

It is comedy, not quite tragic, about a man, a designer, whose obsession for detail overtook his life.  His diagrams (he never called them maps) demonstrated a passion that only a really skilled draughtsman could wring out of a collection of connected stations, some names much longer than others.  It requires real dexterity to maintain balance with, for example, Highbury & Islington vs Bank.  Not easy.  And he does not really work for London Transport, his role was what we call today “a freelancer”.  The pay, even by the standards of the time (the first diagram was published in 1931), was poor, just one guinea (21 old shillings) and later there was a row about the copyright ownership.

Instead of showing the realistic distance between each station, Beck settles on a comprehensible design inspired by his work on electrical circuit diagrams. The complexity of the task is cleverly demonstrated with a scene involving coloured ribbons, each representing an Underground line.  It is a neat, sharp, design.

The piece is intertwined by Harry and Nora’s love life.  No babies for them, the couple finishing their days in the New Forest, a change from Finchley with the Northern line at the bottom of the garden.

Was Beck, who never found fame in his lifetime, but as depicted by Snashall, craved it, Britain’s greatest ever draughtsman?

Rising from the depths of the Cubitt Theatre into the London Transport Museum’s two floors of merchandise you see Beck’s work everywhere.  Surely this is his memorial.

The Truth About Harry Beck is unique theatre.  

Don’t miss it before it comes off!

www.ltmuseum.co.uk

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