1936 by Tom McNab – Arcola Theatre **

Tom McNab cannot be faulted when it comes to dedication to his art – he is appearing after each performance of 1936 at the Arcola to lead a discussion. I cannot enlighten you as to the form or necessity of this discussion as, having not enjoyed the play, I didn't stay for it or for the accompanying excerpt from the Riefenstahl film Olympiad. These added extras are very telling: the play should stand on its own as the dramatisation of a moment in history, it should be whole in itself without the need for attendant analytical baggage. The historical points and ideological implications were so patronisingly laboured throughout that there was really no need to follow it with more prescriptive pronouncements from the cast or playwright.

The play centres on America's potential boycott of the Berlin Olympic Games in response to the treatment of the Jewish athletes by the Nazis. An interesting premise which failed in the execution: this subject does have dramatic potential but the play felt like a fleshed-out textbook rather than an engaging piece of theatre. McNab is so bent on historical accuracy that an engaging script and believable characters are sidelined. Hitler was diminutive and predominantly unconvincing, only once reaching the heights of passion for which the real historical figure was infamous. The director, Jenny Lee, has Jesse Owens and a female high-jumper go at their respective sports in strange sepia-lit slow-motion which managed to raise a chuckle in this theatre-goer but extinguished any last remaining shreds credibility.

By the end, it isn't just the play that asks us 'would the holocaust have happened if America hadn't attended?', there is an irritating reporter/narrator to put this question to us with the lack of subtlety which characterises the whole enterprise. Indeed, we will never know the answer to this question, or any other like it, because 'the ifs of history stretch from here to Albuquerque'. And on that cringe-worthy note, all I can say is that at least 1936 had brevity on its side.

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