Famed sitcom writing team Marks & Gran find the funny – and the dramatic – in this full stage debut of their darkly comic alternate reality
If you don't already know Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, you'll likely know their shows: Birds of a Feather, Goodnight Sweetheart and The New Statesman, to name just a few. In the way that their sitcoms explored cocksure characters (Rick Mayall's Alan B'stard feels particularly relevant), Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler delves even deeper into the human psyche.
Having discovered a slim black German volume from the 1950s called ‘Hitler’s Youth’ (surprisingly, not an ironic pun), which said that the Führer’s father might have championed corporal punishment and his anxious mother thought of taking her son to therapy, they could not resist picking up the idea of an alternative reality.
The drama begins with sounds of vicious beating and snarling invective over the terrified cries of a child, hidden from view behind a screen. Mrs Klara Hitler (empathetic Nesba Crenshaw, who also plays Freud's wife Martha) tries to stand between her apoplectic husband Alois and seven-year-old son Adolf. Given his father’s abuse, and resulting bed-wetting and night terrors, Klara decides to take the boy to see the eminent exponent of the relatively new medical discipline of psychiatry, Dr Sigmund Freud. This turns out to be the first of four meetings over many years between Hitler and Freud (or Hitler and Freud).
Jonathan Tafler’s wonderfully gentle but firm Freud seems at this first meeting to be the paternal figure young Adolf needs, especially when he is coaxed from under a table by the offer of a figurine. Sam Mac, who plays Adolf throughout, manages to impart a small child’s nervous jitters, earning sympathy from the off. This is largely down to Mac’s layered performance, and a costume of lederhosen, braces and knee-high socks.
As Adolf grows up, and after the death of his parents, he remains in touch with Freud, doing useful jobs around his home (including painting). His relationship with his psychiatrist even extends to his perceptive daughter Anna (excellent Ruby Ablett), who is impressed by Adolf's determination to become a real painter.
Freud’s analysing and developing the spectrum of psychiatry over the decades is central to the play’s trajectory and his patient Adolf continues to consult him. Indeed, Adolf becomes so dependent on Freud that he actually turns up at his holiday home in the mountains. He's beginning to confide in the psychiatrist that he puts much of his lack of achievement and failure to gain a place at art school down to the parallel success, and therefore influence, of Jews in high places. How long can Freud continue to be his psychiatrist? How long before Adolf’s paranoia turns to murderous hatred?
Of course, we know the answer, but it's still horribly fascinating watching the relationship break down as Adolf gets older, grows his signature moustache and becomes progressively more frustrated in his ambitions to be a painter. Over the years Freud is met with an increasingly angry Adolf as his feelings of entitlement harden his focus on finding both followers and scapegoats. On Hannah Danson’s simple, versatile set lined with the doctor's magnified notes, Tafler’s Freud conveys authority, professionalism and composure in his formal dress and manner.
Other doctors are played by Brendan Lyle and Neil Chinneck steps into the shoes of Alois Hitler, Carl Jung and various army officers. All are pitch perfect, relishing their roles as the audience relishes this superb, satirical what if.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Simon Jackson
Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler runs until Sunday 28 September. 7.30pm, 3pm (Sat only). £25. Upstairs at The Gatehouse, N6 4BD. upstairsatthegatehouse.com