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It feels sort of wrong to trash talk Ernest Hemingway: courageous wartime reporter, winner of both a Pulitzer and a Nobel prize, all-round literary icon. But then again ‘The Fifth Column’ is the only play he ever wrote – you wouldn’t ask Shakespeare to turn in a Buzzfeed listicle about sloths and expect it to be as good as ‘Hamlet’, so perhaps it’s no surprise that Hemingway’s play, bravely adapted here by Two’s Company, is a dull, superficial, forgettable slog of a show.
It’s set in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, but save for the odd flash and crash as shells land around the stereotype-staffed, Fawlty Towers-ish Hotel Florida, you’d barely know it. Here, lovers Philip, a hard-drinking spy (Simon Darwen) and Bridges, a vacuous socialite (Alix Dunmore), occupying two separate rooms – which could explain why their relationship demonstrates about as much chemistry as Walter White on his day off – allow us a two-and-a-half hour glimpse into the world’s most boring relationship.
Performances are generally admirable, and the staging solid enough, but ‘The Fifth Column’ never rises above its lifeless source material. Maybe have a crack at ‘The Sun Also Rises’ next time, eh?