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Vincent in Brixton

Published Monday 23 March 2009 at 11:05 by Julie Watterston

Vincent Van Gogh’s stay in London in 1873 is generally an unnoticed period in his life yet it probably covers some of the most catalytic developments towards his psychological demise.

As Vincent’s youthful passion for his landlady’s daughter is replaced by a lusty affair with the landlady herself, a dark side to his character develops. Even the landlady notices that his inner antagonisms are not expressed externally in his sketches and once he realises that his work can be used as an outlet for anger and frustration, then he focuses in on experiencing despair for the sake of his art. The play ends as his psychosis begins to take hold.

Mark Edel-Hunt gives an excellent performance as Vincent. His well-studied Dutch accent and strong characterisation is the lynchpin to the success of this production, as Edel-Hunt develops Vincent’s character from a young, excitable foreigner in London into the beginnings of the Van Gogh that history remembers.

Lin Blakley is the landlady Ursula Loyer whose widow’s weeds and exterior serenity cover her internal depression and suppressed passion with Amy Ellen Richardson as her daughter Eugenie and Alastair Whatley as the other lodger and Eugenie’s secret lover. Nicola Sangster completes the cast as Vincent’s sister Anna.

Directed by Max Lewendel with the working Victorian kitchen set designed by Christopher Hone, the production takes place around the large kitchen table that provides an inanimate mechanism from which the play emerges.

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