24 April – 3 May 2025
by Hugh Whitemore
The Jacksons are a nice middle aged English couple. Their best friends are their Canadian neighbours, the Krogers. All is blissful in their world until a detective from Scotland Yard asks to use their house as an observation station in an attempt to foil a Soviet spy ring operating in the area. The Jacksons become more and more put out as Scotland Yard’s demands on them increase. They are really put to the test when the detective reveals that the spies are the Krogers and he asks them to help set a trap. Should they betray their friends?
Actual events during the Cold War inspired this gripping thriller that takes place in a suburb of London during the autumn and winter of 1960-1961.
Cast
Bob Jackson | Peter Brown
Barbara Jackson | Rosie Foster
Julie Jackson | Flo Moore
Helen Kroger | Catherine Elliott
Peter Kroger | Jay Rolfe
Stewart | Jan Kool
Thelma | Natalie Jones
Sally | Avril Swift
Directed by Chris Hearn
Photography by Steve Whiteley
Review | May 2025 | Theo Spring
As we are told almost at the beginning of this intriguing play about spies, in a speech by the enigmatic Mr Stewart – so well envisaged by Jan Kool, the story behind the play “ is, by the way, by and large, true”.
It tells of the Krogers, who lived what appeared to be an ordinary suburban life in Ruislip and playwright Hugh Whitemore spins out a plot which slowly reveals how they are passing on secrets obtained from Gordon Lonsdale. They seem a charming couple; they befriend their neighbours – the Jacksons, who live opposite them. Reluctantly the Jacksons allow daughter Julie’s bedroom window to be used by Mr Stewart’s team to spy on the spies and, apart from the loss of secrets, there is a huge price to pay.
It is 1961 and the set of this semi, designed by Simon Brodrick-Ward, needed a living room, a kitchen with room for a table and chairs, and a hall – all to be seen by the audience. The front door itself may have been a fraction too modern for the period but the kitchen and living room exuded the early 60’s and were cleverly delineated, not by physical walls but by décor and flooring. The set worked very well, with stairs leading off the hall, enabling all the action to be visible.
Peter Brown and Rosie Foster are Bob and Barbara Jackson – a normal couple with just the one daughter, Julie. The friendship evolved with Peter and Helen Kroger is realistically portrayed, with Babara even relying on Helen to help her talk sense into daughter Julie’s growing attachment to Malcolm – a teenager with a speedy motorbike. Helen buys expensive gifts for the Jacksons and Barbara makes Helen a dress. They are close.
Stewart’s polite but firm demands for keeping watch across the road bring a growing angst for Bob and Barbara with Rosie Foster’s Barbara slowly beginning to realise that all is not as she has been led to believe. We, in the audience, may even have been able to see the wheels in motion and their initial rejection turning to the realisation of the difficult thing they were being asked to do.
Catherine Elliott created a Helen Kroger full of bounce and bonhomie. Sustaining an accent throughout – the Krogers insisted on being thought of as Canadian, not Americans – she created a plausible and kind friend. The revelation at the end that she was, in fact, a colonel in the KGB, made this even more shocking. Jay Rolfe made husband Peter Kroger calmer and less effusive, still keeping up the normalities their disguise required whilst Peter Brown as Bob Jackson was slowly torn between his reluctant commitment to help Stewart and watching the effect the pretence was having on his wife.
Flo Moore was a lively Julie Jackson – epitomising the teen of the era and kept in the dark as to who was really under observation from her bedroom window.
Stewart’s ‘Girls’, who had the watching brief, had a just short time on stage to establish their characters. Natalie Jones as the longer-serving Thelma evolved a regard for Barbara and some empathy with what she was experiencing whereas Avril Swift’s Sally who was only seen very briefly, did well in the time the playwright allowed her.
Jan Kool’s inscrutable Mr Stewart continued to politely demand that the watch continue whilst giving little or nothing away. A large and important role extremely well delivered.
Rosie Foster’s ability to show Barbara’s torment at deceiving her friends was highly commendable as we watched her struggle and understood the helplessness of her situation. There were short monologues presented to the audience, front of stage, each giving some kind of insight into events or feelings. The most profound of these was Peter Brown’s Bob, at the very end of the play, giving a heart-felt summary of how everything had finally ended.
The music played throughout the production helped to anchor its era with one particularly sombre piece, which was voiced over, being memorable.
Director Chris Hearn had ensured that the underlying unease of the narrative and the tensions within it were slowly and expertly built, and the high quality of all the acting certainly helped achieve this.