Nachtland review: A dark, unsettling drama about finding Hitler’s art in the attic

Jane Horrocks plays an art expert in this unsettling, endlessly fascinating drama about a pair of siblings who, upon discovering a shocking heirloom in the loft, must grapple with their family’s complicated history

‘Destabilising and endlessly fascinating’: Angus Wright, John Heffernan, Dorothea Myer-Bennett in ‘Nachtland' (Ellie Kurttz)

You’re never quite on solid ground with Marius von Mayenburg’s destabilising, endlessly fascinating new play. The set-up is a classic Cash in the Attic-type scenario, where two German siblings discover a painting in their dead Dad’s loft and dismiss it as a bit of competent kitsch... until they see that it’s signed “A Hitler”. Their resulting moral dilemma could easily produce a worthy debate play, but this Patrick Marber-directed concoction is packed full of lurid surprises, sharp tonal shifts and David Bowie dance breaks.

It’s not quite as much fun as that makes it sound, but it’s still pretty great. The uniformly strong cast nail the heightened tone here, declaring their inner turmoil straight out to the audience as they excavate Germany’s barely hidden Nazi past. John Heffernan makes a hilariously pompous, dreamy Philipp: at first, he’s bullied by his more strident sister Nicola (Dorothea Myer-Bennett, replacing Romola Garai who left the cast last month), but soon they’re conspiring together to embellish the story of their once-embarrassing Nazi grandma Greta for the benefit of slathering art expert Evamaria (Jane Horrocks).

Naturally, Philipp’s Jewish wife Judith (Jenna Augen) is horrified. And the most obvious criticism of Von Mayenburg’s work here is that he makes this one character the play’s whole conscience, responsible for exposing all the moral ugliness of a sibling duo who are happy to exhume their Nazi forebears just for a sweet house deposit.