Reykjavik review: “brimful of humanity and grief”

The play sees Bean return to the world of his 20-year-old hit Under The Whaleback which explored the work conditions and culture of deckhands. This play however is set entirely on dry land. The year is 1975 when Britain affirmed by a big majority its place as a member of the EU’s precursor, the EEC. Mention of this feels like a dig at Brexit, a decision made by a much slimmer margin. But politics is incidental to the two and a half hours of Emily Burns’s beautifully balanced production which is brimful of humanity, grief and chilling ghostly tales.

Matthew Durkan and Paul Hickey in Reykjavik Credit: Mark DouetPhoto by Mark Douet

Looming ahead for Caxton is the ritual all trawler-owners have to undertake when one of their boats fatally sinks. Called “The Walk” the tradition demands that the boat’s owner walks to the home of each wife whose husband died. A high death toll means there is a lot of tea to drink, but “don’t ever take a piss in the house of a woman you’ve made a widow,” advises Caxton’s father who when he ran the family business did the walk a good few times himself.

What went down during Caxton’s daunting, haunting debut walk is revealed in the second act where the action shifts to the bar of a Reykjavik hotel. Here Caxton arrives like a fish of water, braving the resentments that deckhands have for their employers in order to help the survivors of the sinking get home. In this abstemious city rough, hard-to-get alcohol fuels the night.

This is a play that gives an overlooked part of our island nation’s culture its due. Its chilling lore runs like a riptide through the evening and taps on the shoulders its characters like an uninvited guest.