Prism review, Hampstead Theatre

The cinematographer and photographer Jack Cardiff was the man who made women look beautiful. The subtlety of his lighting and camerawork underpins the success of classics like The Red Shoes, The African Queen, Death on the Nile, The Prince and the Showgirl, and even Stephen King's Cat's Eye. He photographed Monroe, Bacall, the two Hepburns, and Sophia Loren. Inevitably, we discover in Prism, Cardiff slept with a number of leading ladies and fell in love with one...

Prism is writer and director Terry Johnson's homage to Jack Cardiff. We meet Jack in old age. His short term memory is going. His long term memory however, is a rich archive of sharp technical detail and insider gossip. Jack's family tries to mitigate his decline by getting him to chronicle his life. His son has turned the garage into a studio full of prompts: cameras, lights, a gallery of his famous portraits. A carer is employed to take notes for an autobiography. Jack's wife has given him a Prism of the type he used to diffuse light and create classic cinematic moments. The scene is set. Without the Director of Photography's eye, however, the scene cannot be shot. Jack's failing eyes stay determinedly on a past that brings him greater pleasure than the confusing present.

Robert Lindsay as Jack is a revelation - joyful, humbling, fumbling, life-enhancing, living every day in full technicolour. Is this by accident or design? In the second half of Prism we enter that diffuse world where today and yesterday fade into and out of each other. Tim Shortall's simple set transforms into the African jungle. Jack's wife and son morph into Hepburn and Bogart. Monroe pops in. We are infected with a nostalgia for the past. It's witty and sad, with excellent support from Claire Skinner, Barnaby Kay, and Rebecca Night.

Conclusion: Jack's Prism has gifted him a full spectrum of possibility. Even as he confronts the dying of his light, he can still see it shining. Film buffs will get pleasure from the familiar lines and deeper layers of meaning in Prism. For me it was a gentle and interesting consideration of, and riposte to, more standard responses to dementia.



Prism at Hampstead Theatre, Eton Road, London NW3 3EU.  Run ends 14 October