The Fifth Column

Staged for the first time in London

For the first time in London, Ernest Hemingway's tale of torrid love during the Spanish Civil War makes its appearance, at the Southwark Playhouse. Based on his own personal experiences as a war correspondent, the play follows the fortunes of a reporter stationed in Madrid, holed up in a hotel with a woman - also a war correspondent. But as Franco's artillery fire bombards them, he struggles with his dual role as journalist - and spy.

A remarkably autobiographical play, The Fifth Column is indicative of the macho bravura that Hemingway's male leads inhabit. Whilst others around him flail, often comically, to stay alive in a horrific situation, the story takes place in hotel bars and in the sweltering hotel rooms with his lover. The woman in this case is based on Hemingway's real-life mistress Martha Gellhorn, famous for being one of the world's first female war correspondents. Love, death and survival form the key themes of this archetypal Hemingway work, with more than a few similarities to his other work, A Farewell To Arms.