My Boy Jack (tour)

Rudyard Kipling’s name conjures up the great age of British Empire and its ideals and values, as recounted in his poem If. If these seem outdated now, it’s worth pointing out that If was recently voted the Nation’s favourite poem.

David Haig’s affecting play focuses on the great writer’s family relationships in the shadow of the Great War. Haig, who plays Kipling himself, presents us with a paterfamilias who cannot help dominating his family.

In the play’s opening moments, his gleeful, though off-key rendering of a ‘new’ music hall hit wins the audience’s affection. But although his awkward attempts at chumminess with his son Jack may be touching, more revealing is his insistence that the myopic would-be army recruit wear a pince-nez to impress the recruiting officers, despite his obvious discomfiture.

Eventually his father pulls strings to get him a commission despite his short sight and the play hinges on the personal tragedy of the Kipling family. Of course it’s just one of millions of similar family stories. And indeed, the play vividly evokes the horror and terror of trench warfare for officers and enlisted men alike.

But Kipling’s fame means the family are in the public eye. The officers examining his son are more interested in meeting the great man than the job in hand (literally, as poor Jack coughs for the doctor holding his intimate parts!). Even as his wife makes desperate attempts to discover her son’s fate on the battlefield, she is infuriated by sightseers trespassing in her garden hoping for a glimpse of the poet.

Although it’s left to Kipling’s wife and daughter to provide a dissenting voice and try to make him see the danger and futility of war, it’s important to see Kipling’s idealism and blind ambition for his son in the context of the times and not through the lens of hindsight. The patriotism of the bard of Empire and the nobility of making the ultimate sacrifice was a given. The personal cost is all too clear.

In a strong cast, led by Haig and Belinda Lang’s intelligent Caroline Kipling, Ben Silverstone and Rosanna Lavelle excel as the children pulled between their love of the father who dominated their childhood and their longing to escape him. John Dove’s powerful production is well-served by Michael Taylor’s vivid designs, especially in the trenches, though the set changes scored with period music slow the pace.

– Judi Herman (reviewed at Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford)