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Copenhagen

 
Roger Kay Review by Roger Kay 4 Published: 11 Apr 2026 Hampstead Theatre Show Dates: 27 Mar 2026-2 May 2026

Uncertainty sits at the centre of Michael Frayn’s ambitious piece, Copenhagen, at the Hampstead theatre.

We have two brilliant scientists who cannot agree on what was said.

Frayn’s play feels uncannily prescient, with Trump’s threats to destroy an entire culture dominating today’s political landscape.

Where does science end and philosophy begin? The splitting of the atom, the 20th century’s seismic scientific achievement, ushers in the possibility of unprecedented destruction, forcing moral questions to be confronted.

By 1941, Nazi Germany had conquered most of Europe, including Denmark. The production of an atomic bomb seemed to be only a matter of time, and the global race was on. The stakes were beyond high. The first to produce such a weapon would be well placed to destroy their enemies. It is doubtful that Hitler would have shown restraint.

Nazi ideology had driven many leading physicists from Germany, leaving Werner Heisenberg (Damien Molony) as its leading light. He travelled to Copenhagen to meet Niels Bohr (Richard Schiff) and his wife, Margrethe (Alex Kingston). A Nobel prize winner, Bohr was an expert in this field, while the formidable Margrethe had a master’s degree in mathematics.

Joanna Scotcher’s stage is striking: a backdrop of scattered hanging lamps and distorted glass, and a circular stage containing two embedded turntables, sparsely furnished and flanked by water.

What follows is not a re-enactment of the famous 1941 meeting, however. Instead, the setting is akin to purgatory, with a fragmented series of conversations between the protagonists, interspersed with their thoughts, mainly focusing on that meeting.

Bohr had refused to co-operate with the Nazis, fearing the obvious repercussions of Hitler procuring the bomb, and resents Heisenberg’s presence. For her part, Margrethe does not trust Heisenberg.

Molony’s performance is assured, but despite Bohr and Heisenberg’s relationship being akin to father and son, the chemistry between Molony and Schiff never quite ignites. Kingston delivers a measured performance, in turns arbiter, narrator and participant. She anchors the play’s emotional core.

The turntables serve to inject dynamism into this long, intellectually challenging but fascinating play, moreover facilitating Bohr and Heisenberg’s jousting – at times converging, then drifting from each other with barely a glance, adeptly worked by director Michael Longhurst. The water is allegorical to the heavy water required as part of nuclear fission, but is also suggestive of the expanse of water in which one of the Bohrs’ children perished.

There are countless themes explored in Copenhagen, but none more than uncertainty. Heisenberg developed his famous uncertainty principle out of epistemological philosophy. Scientists pursue truth, while philosophers study and debate existential matters designed to understand the world. Their spheres of interest overlap, however: both disciplines consider the relationship between the observer and the observed, and this is brought into focus when the two scientists meet in Bohr’s apartment. Their conversations are ostensibly being monitored by the Gestapo, so they go for walks to talk more freely, the observers having changed the behaviour of the observed, leaning into the uncertainty principle.

Frayn continues to ask why Heisenberg went to Copenhagen. Postwar accounts from both men diverge significantly. Herein lies a paradox: we have two of the most brilliant scientists of the day, with consummate attention to detail, who are unable to agree on the content of their conversations.

We may only speculate as to why this is; Copenhagen’s ambiguity poses questions that remain unanswered.

Amir Nisi

Roger Kay

Roger is a theatre director and producer who ran Rialto Theatre in Brighton for nearly a decade. He co-founded Pretty Villain Productions and Rialto Productions, has produced 26 plays and directed several at Brighton Fringe.

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The Blurb:

A HAMPSTEAD THEATRE PRODUCTION

COPENHAGEN

By MICHAEL FRAYNDirected by MICHAEL LONGHURST

"There are only two things the world remembers about me. One is the uncertainty principle, and the other is my mysterious visit to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941. Everyone understands uncertainty. No one understands my trip to Copenhagen."

In 1941, in the middle of the Second World War, the great German physicist Werner Heisenberg made a strange trip to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr. They were old friends, and their brilliant collaboration in the twenties had begun to lay bare the mysteries at the heart of the atom. But now Denmark was under German occupation, the meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment - and Heisenberg was burdened with a terrible secret.

Why he went to Copenhagen and what he wanted to say to Bohr are questions which have exercised historians ever since. In Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning drama Heisenberg meets Bohr and his wife Margrethe once again to look for the answers, and to explore, just as they once had the uncertainty at the heart of the atom, the uncertainty of the human mind.

This modern classic receives its first London production since the 1998 National Theatre premiere in a completely new production by Michael Longhurst (Between Riverside and Crazy, Caroline or Change and Gloria at Hampstead).

Starring award-winning actors Alex Kingston (ER, Doctor Who) as Margrethe, Damien Molony (Being Human, Brassic) as Heisenberg and Richard Schiff (The West Wing, The Good Doctor) as Bohr. 

‘The most invigorating and ingenious play of ideas in many a year and a work of art that humanizes physics in a way no other has done.’ – New York Times

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