Chariots of Fire at Hampstead Theatre

Chariots of Fire at Hampstead Theatre

24 May, 2012
by: Naima Khan

A great story smothered by theatrical crowd-pleasing. 

You can't make a great film on score alone and Chariots of Fire is a great film. Beyond Vangelis' now clichéd but still brilliant music, young runners Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams present two distinct and socially relevant dilemmas about ambition, faith, identity and loyalty in relation to the British establishment. But what these men depict goes beyond the British class system of its setting and says a lot about individual purpose and our organised, definitive ethos. 

The same goes for Mike Bartlett's theatre adaptation directed by Hampstead Theatre's Ed Hall. While you can reluctantly and quickly check the theatrical tick-boxes: great music, great cast, decent set, satisfying occasionally cheesy choreography primed for the West End etc, you still need fully formed characters who give us a reason to care about them, their circumstance and their journey. Thankfully Mike delivers on all of these.

It helps that Hall has cast the excellent Jack Lowden as Eric Liddell, the son of Scottish missionaries whose quiet interactions with his louder determined, more puritan sister would be fascinating to watch in silence let alone with Mike's sharp dialogue. 

Liddell's struggle to communicate his view of God and his ideas about his purpose to his community contrast brilliantly with Abrahams (James McArdle) who struggles to explain his own purpose to himself. His ambition and determination are spurred by the quiet if not subtle anti-Semitism from university grandees and his hard work is wrapped up in ego, the thought of beating Liddell and his frustration at being made to feel the outsider. Cue an interesting conversation with fellow athlete Aubrey Montague about Abrahams' own perception of his otherness which is depicted better here than in the film. 

In other ways this stage show does stay true to the film, sometimes too much. Mike keeps in a lot that could easily have been cut out, like the girlfriends of the athletes. Does anyone care who Abrahams and Liddell hook up with? Especially when these women are so clearly shoe-horned into the action, say little about the characters and one on occasion become the vessel for the hilarity that ensues when a Jew is served pig trotters for dinner. (Seriously. He kept that in.)

And then we come to those theatrical tick-boxes. The first of which is the pathetically obvious London 2012 Olympic parallels as if that's ever going to be anyone's reason for seeing this show. Then there's Miriam Beuther's set which extends the stage, winds it around the audience placing us in the round and gives the actors a place to run. But that's all it does. It's a clever idea poorly utilised. Similarly, the revolving set at the centre is useful but is not always used well. There's one glaring missed opportunity when it remains stagnant as Lidell is accosted on all fronts by the Prince of Wales and other officials about refusing to run on a the Sabbath. 

The script and the production could have been sleeker, more distilled and certainly braver but then the endlessly nostalgic Chariots of Fire would also be less of a crowd-pleaser. But given how well Bartlett expounds the personal and societal dilemma at the heart of this jolly old romp around the track, I think it would have been worth the risk. Oh, and the music still rocks. 


Chariots of Fire runs at Hampstead Theatre until 16th June

Image by Manuel Harlan

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Naima Khan