War Horse team makes a monkey out of Hartlepool
Anger over new play that compares town’s 70pc Brexit vote to folklore of hanged ‘French’ primate
THE PEOPLE of Hartlepool have, over the years, grown rather fond of the tale of their 19th century ancestors who hanged a shipwrecked monkey after mistaking it for a French spy.
Images of the poor creature even adorn the crest of the town’s football club and the team’s monkey-suited mascot has been elected three times as Mayor of Hartlepool.
However, they have reacted angrily to a play about the town legend by the makers of War Horse, which suggests their decisive vote in favour of Brexit shows little has changed.
Nearly 70 per cent of Hartlepool voters chose to leave the European Union, one of the biggest majorities in last year’s referendum. Now, the Londonbased team behind The Hartlepool Monkey says the play, which uses a puppet of the creature to explore its fate at the hands of the town’s residents, highlights the perils of narrowminded isolation and fear of foreigners.
Its production team states: “At a time when Britain is examining its own tolerance and acceptance of newcomers, The Hartlepool Monkey is a timely production about the irrationality of xenophobia, whilst celebrating humanity’s ability to overcome prejudice.” But many in Hartlepool say that is a calumny on what is today a very open and welcoming seaport.
Stuart Drummond, Hartlepool FC’S former mascot H’angus, who – dressed as the eponymous monkey – was elected Mayor of the town from 2002 until May 2013, when the post was abolished in favour of a cabinet system following a local referendum, said: “It’s completely unfair to say the people of Hartlepool are racist and xenophobic.”
He added: “The Tall Ships event was staged here a couple of years ago and we had crews from all around the world and they said we were the most welcoming town they had berthed in.”
Mr Drummond refutes suggestions that the infamous chapter provides a warning about contemporary attitudes to foreigners. “We were at war with the French at the time and people were frightened,” he said. “But that’s completely different to today’s situation and to associate that mentality with the Brexit situation is wrong.”
The tale of the unfortunate monkey stems from an incident reputed to have taken place during the Napoleonic Wars, when fear of a French invasion was at its height.
A ship that ran aground had as its only survivor a monkey, dressed in French naval regalia. Hartlepool’s terrified citizens – never having seen a French person before – mistook it for a spy and held a trial on the beach. The verdict was guilty and the monkey was hanged from the mast of a fishing boat.
Toby Olié, one of the play’s directors, said: “The play can be viewed as an allegory for Brexit. We’d like that in people’s minds when they watch. Blame is being placed on minority groups, but… there are reasons [Leavers] voted the way they did and we have to take the audience on a journey to understand the choices people in the play make.”
Finn Caldwell, the play’s co-director, who, like Olié, worked on the acclaimed dramatisation of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, added: “It’s about communities that feel isolated, and because of that isolation they develop a sense of ‘us and them’. With Brexit and Trump being elected, the story has taken on a real resonance for us.”
Carl Grose, the writer of The Hartlepool Monkey, says his play, which opened in Stratford, east London, last night, is about a “community driven to the point of hysteria”, adding: “I look around and see communities driven to the point of hysteria.”
‘It’s about communities that feel isolated and because of that … develop a sense of us and them’