Michael Grandage’s latest show is about an old snap. Geneticists regard the X-ray of the hydrated ‘B’ form of DNA as one of the loveliest images ever captured. To laymen it looks like some woodlice drowning in yesterday’s porridge. The pic was taken in 1951 by the British biochemist Dr Rosalind Franklin but she failed to realise its significance. When James Watson passed through her lab he took one glimpse and instantly twigged that it revealed the helical structure of DNA. With his pal Francis Crick he built the famous double-helix model which bagged them the Nobel Prize. Dr Franklin (played by Nicole Kidman) won nothing.
We know all this in advance, of course, so the play lacks any suspense. The only uncertainly surrounds the manner and scale of Dr Franklin’s defeat. A real drama needs juicier ingredients than these. Rosalind Franklin is an exceptionally icy customer, a lonely, buttoned-up little brainbox who hasn’t a friend, a lover, or even a pet dormouse to brighten her life.
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