Robert Lindsay as President Roosevelt [Manuel Harlan]

SPRINGWOOD
Hampstead Theatre
3 stars

Richard Nelson’s Springwood, a stage adaptation of his 2012 screenplay Hyde Park on Hudson, focuses on the 1939 meeting between King George VI (Andrew Havill), his wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Night) and President Roosevelt (Robert Lindsay).

The king wants to secure Roosevelt’s support in the looming European war. Roosevelt tries to let him down gently: America’s isolationist stance means his hands are tied by Congress.

Rather than dwell on the politics, Nelson dramatises the personal elements of the encounter: Roosevelt’s polio – his inability to stand unaided – his relationship with First Lady Eleanor (Jemma Redgrave) and his mistress Daisy Suckley (Rachel Pickup), as well as the strains in “Bertie” and Elizabeth’s marriage.

They are hosted by Roosevelt’s mother (Eileen Nicholas) at her upstate New York home, Springwood, overlooking the Hudson River, where the walls are thin and the couples learn more about each other than they had intended.

Gradually they warm to one another and discover they get on. These moments of connection are the play’s strongest.

The first half is a little flat, although Elizabeth’s baffled musings on the unflattering paintings of British soldiers, a magazine article comparing the royals unfavourably to Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson placed in her bedroom, and the planned picnic featuring beer and hot dogs are humorous.

Nelson (who also directs) seats the audience on three sides, giving a vivid sense of eavesdropping on proceedings, but the staging – furniture dragged on and off Tom Piper’s set – feels unnecessarily cumbersome.

Still, it’s beautifully acted by a stellar cast.

Until July 25
hampsteadtheatre.com