The Last South: Pursuit Of The Pole

Adapted from the journals of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott by G.M. Calhoun. Directed by Rob Mulholland.

Available for touring in April/May 2008.

This new drama from a multiple Fringe First winning team charts the incredible journey of two of the world's most revered and remembered explorers. Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott were heroes from a time when the world had just one remaining corner to be conquered. They reveal the worst and best in themselves, their men and each other as they race for the pole.

Calhoun's adaptation, skilfully crafted from Scott and Amundsen's expedition diaries, interweaves the two men's separate but concurrent journeys into a comparative account, told in their own words. As the two actors reveal the hardships, privations, practicalities and triumphs the explorers experienced, we are transported to an alien landscape as unimaginably hostile as it is awe-inspiring.

This dramatic adaptation of the diaries uses only the actual words written by the competing explorers between 1910 and 1912, powerfully retold by two actors. The journals start with preparations for the journey and ends in victory for just one team. But could the other cope with being 'the last south'?

G. M. Calhoun has portrayed more than 200 characters in over 1,300 performances as a professional travelling repertory actor in the USA and has directed more than 60 one act plays and shorts. He now writes full-time, and his other work includes Roland, Coupled, Starting Line and Love or Glory Story.

Rob Mulholland has directed four consecutive Edinburgh Fringe First Award-winning productions: The Lady and the Clarinet (featuring Imelda Staunton and David Thewlis), The Boys Next Door, Undertow and the first authorized stage adaptation of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Three of these transferred to London following their festival debuts. Additionally, Rob directed the West End production of Being at Home with Claude and Sir Frank Finlay in Black Angel at The King's Head.

At the show's Edinburgh festival debut the cast were Adrian Lukis and Jamie Lee. Casting for the UK tour is to be confirmed.

Reviews

Metro - 4 stars

Adapted from the two explorers' diary entries, The Last South: Pursuit Of The Pole recalls the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, as Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott raced to be the first man to the South Pole.

The acting is first rate. As Scott, Adrian Lukis evokes the stiff upper-lip mentality of the British expedition, while Jamie Lee brings a cheeky confidence to his younger Norwegian rival.

The two never address each other directly, yet the monologues are arranged to illustrate Amundsen and Scott's contrasting fortunes at each stage in their voyage.

The use of the eloquent words of the explorers themselves gives this engaging production real gravitas.

The Scotsman - 4 stars

This compelling play charts the journeys of the original Arctic explorers, Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Through extracts from their diaries and letters, we follow them as they battle to beat one another and lead the first successful expedition to the South Pole.

It's a simple idea, in which GM Calhorn cleverly compares and contrasts the explorers' different ideas, decisions and personalities by juxtaposing both accounts of the same trip.

It's an experience that offers much more than simply reading their diaries independently. As both Scott (Adrian Lukis) and Amundsen (Jamie Lee) make their preparations for the arduous task ahead we get a sense of their differing personalities.

Scott, with the confidence and reserve of the pre-war British upper classes, contrasts brilliantly with Amundsen, a fiery rough-and-ready Norwegian. Ultimately, only one man can succeed and, for the other, there is no return from "a blank wall of white on every side".

Lukis and Lee are brilliant as the iconic explorers, capturing both the bravery, humour, heroism and arrogance of their characters. Lukis, in particular, is very strong, beautifully epitomising the dejected yet courageous spirit of the beaten Scott, as he tackles the long and ultimately fatal journey home.

As Scott's body is devoured by frostbite, his demise is sad and slow, but very dignified. As he says, he's "planned for everything except bad planning". This is beautifully contrasted with Amundsen's rise to success as he gets faster and stronger and enjoys "masses of biscuits".

Anyone who has loved stories such as Touching the Void will find these two accounts of human endurance against the extremes of nature wonderfully compelling. They're both great tales, and hearing them together provides a compelling insight into two very different men.

Evening Standard - 4 stars

In 1910, Robert Falcon Scott began an expedition to Antarctica. Norway's Roald Amundsen started his at the same time, chose a different route and became the first man to reach the South Pole, one month before Scott.

Defeated and demoralised, and in bitter weather, the British team succumbed to frostbite, weakness and eventual death on their return journey.

Using the men's diaries and letters, GM Calhorn interweaves the two recollections of events and neatly contrasts gentleman explorer Scott (Adrian Lukis) with driven professional Amundsen (Jamie Lee). Both were talented diarists - Amundsen drily amusing, Scott wryly self-deprecating - but, Edwardian gentleman or not, the Briton was every bit as determined as the Norwegian to plant the flag.

There is much humour in learning just how soppy both men were about their dogs and packhorses, but it is their accounts of the return journeys that are the most poignant.

Amundsen talks gaily about the surfeit of food as he and his team race back to acclaim, while Scott's words are of regret, admitting he had "planned for everything except bad planning".

There is minimal interaction between the men, but that serves only to make the words and performances even more compelling.

The Independent

You don't have to wrap up warm for this race across snowy wastes, but G M Calhoun's vivid account of the conquest of the South Pole is chilling, even so.

Drawing from the diaries and documents of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, Calhoun blends perceptiveness and authority in his subtle interweaving of two tales. Adrian Lukis as Scott exudes the qualities of a gentleman: on the plus side, moral fibre, sportsmanship, endurance; on the minus side, amateurism. As he says, ruefully: "I planned for everything except bad planning."

Amundsen, on the other hand, is the wily scientist who not only keeps his plans close to his chest but also chooses a shorter route and is blessed with better weather. Jamie Lee captures the Norwegian's mental and physical indomitability, and pulls off a credible accent.

Each character narrates his preparations and his party's progress. After the thrill of Amundsen's raising of the flag on the Pole, and his party's exultant return to base camp, the disappointment of Scott's party is the more excruciating : exhaustion and disease prevail on their 800-mile return journey, in deadly cold and constant darkness. "History has no memory of second places," muses Scott. He was wrong, of course, but he hadn't planned for the place in history he was to achieve.

The Guardian

"History has no memory of second places," wrote the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen as he set out on his race to reach the South Pole first. How wrong he was. In Britain at least, Amundsen's achievement has been relegated to a dusty historical footnote, while the heroic failure of his rival, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who perished along with his remaining party just 11 miles from safety, is known to every schoolchild.

Adapted by GM Calhoun from the two explorers' expedition journals, this a potentially thrilling account of heroism and stiff upper lips. By cleverly juxtaposing the two diaries, the drama also offers an insight not just into the minds of very different men, but also the ways in which they organised their expeditions - one leading to success, the other to oblivion. As Scott comments ruefully when disaster looms, his expedition took eight years to plan and he accounted for everything "except bad planning". The sprightliness of Amundsen's dogs contrasts sharply with Scott's decision to use ponies; Scott's men become like sturdy pit ponies themselves - stout of heart, but trudging blindly towards their doom.

The intercutting of the diaries provides a natural dramatic irony, as the differing fortunes of the two parties become increasingly apparent. The piece is beautifully played by Adrian Lukis as Scott, a man who feels he has let everyone down, and Jamie Lee as the phlegmatic Amundsen. The poignancy of Amundsen and his team eating chocolate pudding while Scott and his starve is almost unbearable.