Jacobowsky and the Colonel
David Nathan, Daily Mirror, July 29 1986
NIGEL HAWTHORNE, Yes Minister's subtle civil servant Sir Humphrey, struts the stage as a Polish artistocrat with an accent as thick as a pine forest and with a brain to match in Jacobowsky and the Colonel at London's National Theatre.
Hawthorne performs well in an unconvincing role in this comedy drama, which wallows deep in wartime propaganda.
He plays a Polish colonel who is trapped in Paris in 1940 with secret plans he must get to the British Navy in the south. The only transport is a car owned by a Polish Jew (Geoffrey Hutchings) who cannot drive.
Oddly enough, this mush is directed by Jonathan Lynn, one of the two sharp-witted writers who created Yes Minister.
Jacobowsky and the Colonel
Sunday Telegraph
July 27 1986
Francis King
SINCE, unlike wines, plays rarely improve with age, I was surprised to enjoy Franz Werfel's Jacobowsky and the Colonel far more this time than some 40 years ago.
There were two reasons for this. Firstly, lavisingly using all the resources available to them at the Olivier Theatre, director Jonathan Lynn and his designer Saul Radomsky have between them created scene after scene, whether outdoor or indoors, with stunning realism. Secondly, now that we are so far distanced from the realities of the last war, the fairy-tale elements of this story of two Poles - an anti-semitic aristocrat and a humble, resourceful Jew - obliged to escape from the Germans in the same car, are far more acceptable.
There are such minor stereotypes as a lisping, music-loving Gestapo officer (Frank Lazarus in fine form) and a laconic, insular British agent. But the biggest stereotypes, all too reminiscent of Shaw's posturing Sergius and his down-to-earth Bluntschli in "Arms and the Man" are the two central figures.
Nigel Hawthorne has the harder task with the Colonel, since he is too old for the role and romantic flamboyance is not, in any case, his strong suit. But he adroitly brings out not merely what is comic but what is sad. With Jacobowsky, a character too good to be true, Geoffrey Hutchings achieves a triumph of quiet professionalism. But the best performance, full of subtle touches, is Ken Stott's as the Colonel's much-tried batman.
If the play too often seems like some old wartime movie, then that is part of its sunny, silly, sentimental appeal.
