Review: Photograph 51 at the Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli

I confess the name Rosalind Franklin meant nothing to me prior to hearing of Anna Zeigler’s Photograph 51, and I had never given a thought to the discoverers of DNA. Like so many scientific breakthroughs we all take for granted, the boffins behind this breakthrough were unknown to me, and faceless. Faceless, and in the 1950s, such boffins were usually men. Which is just one reason why Franklin’s name is not so well known as those of Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 for their discovery of the DNA double helix . And no, their names meant nothing to me, either.

Zeigler’s 90-minute play has changed all that, and brought Dr Rosalind Franklin some posthumous recognition. Under Anna Ledwich’s taut direction, Photograph 51 is a polished gem: a period piece that is at once entertaining and informative, a snapshot of race and gender bias in stuffy post-war Britain set against the race for recognition of the aforementioned scientific discoveries. Not exactly a thriller, but a window into a different world. Photograph 51 draws you in.

Pivotal to its success are the always-watchable Amber McMahon as the testy and ambitious Franklin (how dare she be both these things, and a woman?) and Garth Holcombe as Maurice Wilkins, the stitched-up professor at King’s College London, who heads the team Franklin goes to join. And that is the first problem. Franklin feels she has been brought in under false pretences; she will head her own research, thank you very much. Wilkins is very much part of the boys’ own, chauvinistic establishment. Both characters, both brilliant scientists and both flawed, have built walls around themselves. Franklin, Jewish and female, has to fight every step of the way to get the status she deserves; Wilkins, in his British stiff-upper-lip way, is as emotionally repressed and entitled as they come.

As an audience we are focused on the interactions between Franklin and Wilkins, but the other four members of the cast give strong performances and flesh out the nuances and discriminations of the time. Gareth Yuen is the jovial Ray Gosling, Franklin’s assistant who, under her direction, takes Photograph 51, the slide that provides the vital clue to the DNA double helix; as Franklin’s rivals, Toby Blome is a youthful and irritating James Watson and Robert Jago is the quietly relentless and ambitious Francis Crick (‘Why won’t she share her results?’ they complain, annoyed by such a pesky woman as they hide their own homework); and Jake Speer as Don Caspar, the Jewish American scientist who becomes besotted with Franklin and her work.

We meet Franklin as she farewells colleagues in Paris, leaving behind her research lab and happy memories for what will be a more austere and unwelcoming London. It is easy to forget how much has changed in just a few decades: for example, women not allowed to eat with their male colleagues in the King’s College common room; married women not allowed to work in government institutions; all that sort of thing. And history is littered with people – men, but many more women – who  have not been recognised for their contributions to art and science. Playwright Zeigler has righted that wrong by putting Franklin in the theatrical spotlight. Thankfully, she has not made her a saint. As director Ledwich asks: ‘Did Franklin sideline her own contribution [by her attitudes and lack of collaboration] or was she a victim of scientific skullduggery? It depends on who you believe?’

Life is full of what-ifs. But this sharply written play is an entertaining exploration of double standards, as fascinating in their way as the double helix of DNA, and things that might have been. The hairstyles and costumes are as convincing as the characters, spot-on recreations of the early 1950s, so all credit to designer Emma Vine. Science labs are softly lit, courtesy of designer Trudy Dalgleish, whose lighting makes scene switches seamless. And it’s probably no plot spoiler to lament that Franklin died young. Another what if?