The Northern Echo - Review: The Guinea Pig Club

Mon 22 Oct 2012

Written by Steve Pratt

Good intentions don’t make a good play. The creators may be motivated by a strong desire to tell a story that needs to be told, but that doesn’t always translate into watchable theatre.

How pleasing to report then that The Guinea Pig Club – the story of the maverick surgeon who pioneered the treatment of badly burnt Second World War air crews – succeeds on all counts.

This is a remarkable and moving piece of theatre, shedding light on a story of which most people, I suspect, are ignorant and which has reverberations today in the treatment of soldiers returning from war both physically and mentally scarred.

Susan Watkins’ play doesn’t hold back on the horror of the situation as a motley band of injured men are treated by Archibald McIndoe, who believed that both body and soul needed treatment to make injured men fit for society again.

Some scenes are difficult to watch but introducing a singing nurse, wandering through the action singing songs from the wartime period, does much to bind the scenes together.

Graeme Hawley, last seen as Satan in this summer’s York Mystery Plays, shows us a passionate surgeon in McIndoe, a man of genius who introduced wine, women and song onto the wards as part of his recovery plan. His life away from the hospital is hinted at rather than openly exposed, but we get the idea of a man who was less successful in his personal life than he was in his professional career.

Fiona Dolman’s ward sister provides a caring, calming influence as she questions his more outlandish methods, while the actors playing the patients offer a range of familiar personalities – the posh one, the cocky one, the Canadian one and so on – without resorting to cliche.

Damian Cruden’s direction gets the balance of laughter and horror just right, with Joanna Scotcher’s hangar-like set another triumph.

Read the review on The Northern Echo website.