Site specific performances are two a penny in London, with some making excellent use of interesting spaces and others merely dropping actors and audiences into an unusual venue with the hope some magical synthesis will happen. Keats in Hampstead is an example of a crucially appropriate site adding a vital context that can't be achieved any other way.
Written and directed by James Veitch, Keats in Hampstead is a simple two-hander, with Andrew Dawson and Jennifer Taylor playing John Keats and Fanny Brawne, the poet and the girl next door who fall in love. The production draws on the letters the lovers sent to one another, literary criticism and Keats' poems to illustrate the passion of their relationship - and you can see it where it all originally happened, on the very lawns where they met and walked and talked. There's also a chance to sit in the gardens for this outdoor production, underneath (or at least very nearby) the plum tree where Keats sat and wrote Ode to a Nightingale.
There are three performances left, 3pm and 6pm on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday. Picnics are encouraged - bring a rug and a hamper and enjoy the lawns. Ticket price also includes admission to the house so you could have a full Keatsian outing: bonnets and breeches optional, though you might want to leave them at home as the performance is modern dress.
Keats in Hampstead at Keats House, until Sunday 1 August. For more information and to book, go to the Keats House website.
