Whale of a Time at Wilton’s
A trip to Wilton’s Music Hall is a promise of adventure and tonight even more so as we breezed along Cable Street with a fair wind behind us to review a new production of Moby Dick by award winning ensemble Simple8. Our young reviewers were eager to enjoy a pre-show pizza in the bar there and a moment or two to marvel at this beautiful old theatre, writes Frida, Woody and Ed Gray.
‘Dad why are we the only children here?’ whispered Frida as the house lights went down over the excited audience. I had no answer. Melville’s nautical novel, written in 1851, had once transported me halfway into the stormy Atlantic before I’d abandoned ship myself, promising to re-board one day, so I was initially perturbed that this might be a long evening for our young reviewers. However, this talented multi- instrumental ensemble cast kept the pace up throughout and sea shanties aplenty were soon flowing.
Ishmael, a Manhattan schoolteacher craving adventure on the high seas, is our narrator newly arrived in Nantucket. Mark Arends’ performance successfully conveys the sense of innocence and wide-eyed wonder at the mysterious forces of nature soon to confront him in the form of Captain Ahab and his imagined nemesis personified by Moby Dick.
The tension ramps up as we hear Ahab’s wooden leg pacing on the minimal set before we see him. Guy Rhys crams as much of Ahab’s brooding menace and mania that he can muster into the comparably short duration of the play. The ingenuity of the scene Ishmael delivers on the industrialisation of cetacean carcasses was delivered with the wit and precision of Melville’s words, exposing the savage brutality and butchery of the whaling industry that could boil a sperm whale down to 2000 barrels of oil – fuel for an industrial revolution and the pursuit of empire and global capitalism.
The play skims over the more overt references to whiteness, slavery and racism that Melville explores in a book that contains so much of America then and now – a paranoid, deluded white man pursuing an imagined foe to give meaning to his life while destroying everything in his path as a result. Dramatic seafaring ensemble scenes and charming musical interludes are more in keeping the spirit of this production.
Reviewer Woody turns to me during a rendition of the Greenland Whale Fisheries and pipes up: ‘It’s a Pogues song!’ And indeed they did record a version of it forty years ago, just a few streets away in Wapping Wall. And that’s the beauty of seeing this production here at Wilton’s. We are in the heart of the old Pool of London where all of this really happened. Greenland Dock lies due south east across the river, Cable Street itself started off as a straight path, precisely the length of hemp rope which, when twisted into a cable, was used to supply the ships in the nearby docks. There’s even an old whalebone revealed in the mud at low tide in Rotherhithe – a vestige of an ingenious repair to a whaling ship out at sea.
Director Jesse Jones and Kate Bunce’s innovative minimalism transports us aboard the Pequod whaling ship. The lighting at times turns industrial rigging poles and ropes into misty, shadowy masts in the watery light of a latter day Thames crowded with ships eager for commercial cargo, whether agricultural, animal or human. ‘All that for a poor whale!’ declared Frida as we left Wilton’s. There’s much to delight in this revisiting of Melville’s classic and we journeyed home, southbound underneath the Thames, discussing the business of whaling. Ishmael harpoons it best, -‘Death is the business of it!’
Wilton’s Music Hall, Graces Alley, London E1 8JB until 11th May. Mon – Sat 7:30PM; Thu & Sat matinees 2:30PM; BSL performance: Thursday 9 May 2:30PM – Signer will be positioned stage right.£15 – £30 full price | £12.50 – £27.50 concessions.
