The Ballad of Hattie and James
The Kiln

IT’S a great story. Talented pianists Hattie and James meet when they’re 16. He progresses through life as a musician while she drops away: another great woman casually junked from the roll call of history.

Only when she, one day, spontaneously pours out her soul with a public performance on the piano at St Pancras International does she suddenly garner fame by going viral on the internet.

A truly gender-driven triumph!

But Samuel Adamson’s script is not content with such simplicity. Meandering back and forth through time, it focuses not so much on the music or its success but rather on the jagged and fragile relationship between Hattie and James.

Even here, it’s not what you think for both spend their lives in a series of gay relationships, sexual contact between the two of them occasionally considered as a concept but ultimately unrealised. In fact, so different are they and so separated by character and the vagaries of life, that a special bond between them seems fabricated.  

Richard Twynam directs with consummate skill while Jon Bausor’s revolving stage transports the gleaming piano to the heart of all action. Berrak Dyer is our onstage pianist, filling the air with tantalising snatches of concert-ready performance, especially that of closet-gay Benjamin Britten (James’s favourite) and of Fanny Mendelssohn (a famously overlooked genius inspiring Hattie to declare “I love Fanny” with obvious connotations).

All is in place for a first-rate production but …

While the play gushes from the writer with a deluge of ideas and a carnival of live music to engage and enthral, it often leaves the audience with too little to hold on to as the main thrust of the story.

The writer knows what’s going on, but constantly wrong-foots us to the detriment of emotional engagement. Meanwhile the dialogue, while brimming with wit, humour and clever volte face, becomes rather an incontinent splurge than a clear path for an audience.

Self-indulgent is a word that springs to mind, and, though awesome that the writer explodes with such complexity, quick throw-away jokes detract from what could otherwise be a profound theme.

There is never a real emotional climax and all feels observed from the outside rather than experienced and shared. Even when the two kiss, it is always one forcing the kiss on the other whose blank response is deadening.

Much is made of the star pairing of Charles Edwards as James and Sophie Thompson as Hattie, and there is no doubt these will bring the punters in.

Edwards is splendid. He effortlessly holds the stage from beginning to end: strong, centred and able to move an audience through technique alone.

Thompson is more of a wild card, varying stylistically from Edwards as if they are in two very different plays. With her eccentric appearance and forced comedy, any real chemistry between the two is hard won and never quite believable.

Suzette Llewellyn, as all the other adult women, raises the game. But it’s an uneven piece that never fully lands.  

Runs until May 18 2024. Box office https://kilntheatre.com