Design For Travelling
“It isn’t a map, it’s a diagram!”
Harry C Beck
I am sitting on a tube train, and when I look up I am surrounded by linear representations of the London Underground. These informative and colourful designs are down to one man, Harry C Beck who died 50 years ago, on 18th September, the day the Press Night was held for this new play The Truth About Harry Beck at the Cubic Theatre inside the London Transport Museum.
We first meet Harry (Simon Snashall) when he is employed as an apprentice signalman, drawing circuit diagrams and schematics for the signal boxes for the London Underground. He is young and on the principle of “last in, first out” irrespective of merit, he is made redundant. He goes to the London Transport headquarters at 55 Broadway in St James’s where the magnificent entrance hall strikes him as looking like a cathedral for transport.
We hear about the chosen font, the one we still see everywhere on the Tube. The Johnston Sans Serif font was designed by Edward Johnston and commissioned by Frank Pick in 1913. That is the font you will see on all the station names that are written in on the Underground and the one Harry Beck used on his maps which he prefers to be called diagrams.
We see the early maps before his design, which Harry called “spaghetti” because they were based on geographical distance and the centre is a clump of confusion like a pile of cooked spaghetti. (Scroll down to see) Harry Beck’s schematic design is an iconic genius. The other actor in this play is Ashley Christmas, whose main part is to be Harry’s wife Nora, but who also takes part as many incidentals like Frank Pick and Mr Patmore of London Transport.
Mrs Beck’s sewing basket, full of different coloured ribbons, is the inspiration and materialisation of the differently coloured lines draped across Harry’s work room. To the north is the black ribbon starting at Stanmore and to the south, at floor level, Kennington. Lines cross at Oxford Circus and Holborn. Together Harry and Nora drape the ribbon across the room ending up with a pretty configuration as complicated as trimming the Maypole.
There is information about how little London Transport paid Harry Beck for his masterly design, despite much of the work being done on his own time. He and Nora travel the lines to see their work in action and the pocket map had to be reprinted immediately in the thousands.
Ashley Christmas is a counter point to Harry’s obsession with perfecting his design and when persuading him to move house she knows her Ace card is the tube line at the bottom of the new house’s garden which indeed thrills him. Simon Snashall too captures Harry Beck’s personality and dedication.
Playwright Andy Burden, who also directs, has written this charming play about Harry Beck who in 2006 had “from an idea by Harry C Beck” added to the London Underground poster. On our way out of the museum we could see mugs and tea towels and even oven gloves covered in Harry Beck’s design.
Editor of TheatreVibe.co.uk
Production Notes
The Truth About Harry Beck
Written and Directed by Andy Burden
Cast
Starring:
Ashley Christmas
Simon Seashell
Creatives
Director: Andy Burden
Set Designer: Sue Condie
Costume Designer: Anna Dixon
Natural Theatre Company Production
Information
Running Time: One hour 10 minutes without an interval
Booking to 10th November 2024
Theatre:
The Cubic Theatre
London Transport Museum
Covent Garden Piazza
London WC2E 7BB.
Website: https://cubictheatre.seetickets.com/
Tube: Covent Garden
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge at the
Cubic Theatre on 18th September 2024
