Not much is known for certain as to precisely what was said at a 1941 meeting in Copenhagen (hence the play’s title) between Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) (Damien Molony) and Niels Bohr (1895-1962) (Richard Schiff). On 9 April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark, despite Denmark having declared itself neutral when World War II began in September 1939. Heisenberg, a German, had worked with Bohr, a Dane, as academics in 1924. Both won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Bohr in 1922 and Heisenberg a decade later. By the time the pair met again in 1941, Heisenberg was part of Uranverein, the German nuclear weapons project, and Bohr was still at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen, which he founded in 1920.
The presence of Bohr’s wife, Margrethe (1890-1984) (Alex Kingston), in this production provides another perspective on whatever might or might not have taken place. She does not always take her husband’s side; it seemed to me that she contradicted him more than she concurred with him. Talk of bombs in this World War Two play was very pertinent on press night, with a real-world threat from the White House to destroy Iranian civilisation on the audience’s mind, even if there was a stay of execution after all. Still, theatre as escapism? Not here.
To address the problem of uncertainty, which itself was a nod to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (a concept in quantum mechanics which I will not attempt to explain here), as to what may or may not have been said in this meeting of minds, the play presents different iterations of the same conversation, the details of which are different each time. So, they meet, again and again – the same meeting, but with different points of contention. Perhaps the idea was to give various perspectives equal consideration. But this, together with the use of a stage revolve, gave the production a feeling that the story was, literally and figuratively, going around in circles.
In what is a very wordy play, the narrative just about pulls back from getting too stuck into the minutiae of what was scientific progress at the time, by way of contrived insertions of background details from years and decades before. Of course, Bohr and Heisenberg (or is it Heisenberg and Bohr?) knew each other well enough not to require one another’s backstories to be spoken out loud. I wonder if providing the audience with such particulars, which the play does reasonably well, would be better done by addressing the audience directly. It would break up the long conversations and provide anchor points for the cast. The script was a challenge to listen to, and given the number of stumbles, presumably challenging to perform. Molony was the only one not to fluff his lines.
There are some intriguing points made about the fallibility of human recall, and not just in the on-the-night trip-ups. “Recollections may vary”, as the Royal Family put it not so long ago. Some complex scientific and political issues are addressed without requiring any prior reading to come to this show. But I wasn’t exactly gripped by this meandering and rather lukewarm production.
Review by Chris Omaweng
In 1941, in the middle of the Second World War, the great German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr. They were old friends, and their brilliant collaboration in the twenties had begun to lay bare the mysteries at the heart of the atom. But now Denmark was under German occupation, the meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment – and Heisenberg was burdened with a terrible secret.
CAST
Margrethe – Alex Kingston
Heisenberg – Damien Molony
Bohr – Richard Schiff
ARTISTIC TEAM
Writer – Michael Frayn
Director – Michael Longhurst
Designer – Joanna Scotcher
Lighting Designer – Neil Austin
Composer & Sound Designer – Richard Hammarton
Production Manager – Andreas Ayling
Associate Costume Designer – Deborah Andrews
Assistant Director – Finlay Glen
Casting Director – Jim Carnahan CSA
Company Stage Manager – Lindah Balfour
Deputy Stage Manager – Lorna Earl
Assistant Stage Manager – Evelin Thomas
COPENHAGEN
Hampstead Theatre
27 March to 2 May 2026
