Richard Bean’s plays are full of wit and rich anecdote.  He writes about what he knows and in Under the Whaleback in 2003 that award winning play was about the decline of the trawler fishing industry based in Hull. In his latest play, Reykjavik he returns to this industry taking a snapshot of 1976.  Each act of Reykjavik  tackles his subject from a different angle but we start with Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth) who is in charge of the fleet and has lost the Graham Greene in Icelandic waters and fifteen men. 

Anna Reid’s set for this act is a large office for the fleet owner, another office to the rear behind glass where secretary Charlotte (Sophie Cox) is based.  The visitors to Donald Claxton give us rich detail about his responsibilities.  Claxton takes calls through Wick radio from his trawlers all named after literary characters; it seems he read English at Cambridge.  Claxton’s father William Claxton (Paul Hickey) calls in, retired but finding it hard to give up the industry. 

He is asking a skipper to delay his landing by a day to ensure a healthy market for his catch. Claxton has to sack a young skipper Rick Toov (Adam Hugill) for not catching enough fish.  His next visitor is the wife of one of the men on the Graham Greene, Lizzie Jopling (Laura Elsworthy).  What she is complaining about is surprising but Claxton handles her complaint particularly well.