Review: Our Martin in the Background

David Lean’s Brief Encounter is a film defined by its restraint—all steam trains, Rachmaninoff, and stiff upper lips. In Our Martin in the Background, writer and performer Mark Kydd shifts the focus from the stars to the blur behind Celia Johnson’s shoulder. It is here we find Martin, a background artist whose own story of love found and lost plays out in the silence of the cutting room floor.

Mark Kydd: A masterclass in sedentary storytelling

It takes a performer of considerable confidence to hold a room’s attention for an hour without ever leaving his chair. Kydd manages it with ease. He is a deeply engaging presence, adopting a soft Northern accent that fits the setting perfectly while avoiding the trap of parody.

The narrative itself is perfectly sized for the format. We follow Martin from the freezing platforms of Carnforth station to the London studios, swept up in the machinery of filmmaking. The script employs strategic name-dropping—”Our Gracie”, Stanley Holloway, and the like—to firmly place the story in its time and place.

It takes a performer of considerable confidence to hold a room’s attention for an hour without ever leaving his chair.

These aren’t just period decoration; they firmly ground a central romance that is first kept in the shadows by prejudice, then denied by a mix of societal intolerance and honourable obligation.

A victim of the times, or a victim of the script?

The pacing is snappy, driving the story forward with a blend of nostalgic comedy and bittersweet fictional memoir. Kydd defines the characters crossing Martin’s path with a few well-chosen words, invoking them without resorting to hammy impressions. That said, the performance might benefit from a little more physicality to help distinguish the cast of characters.

The pacing is snappy, driving the story forward with a blend of nostalgic comedy and bittersweet fictional memoir.

Martin is ultimately revealed as a figure deserving of sympathy, held prisoner to his own brief encounter not just by time and place, but by his own inability to move on. Here lies the play’s one significant ambiguity. As the story concludes, it becomes clear Martin is a victim of his own emotional inertia. Yet, it is not entirely clear whether this frustration is an intentional tragic flaw designed by Kydd or a blind spot in the writing. Is Martin paralyzed by 1945, or is the script simply unwilling to let him grow?

Softening the Bennett blows

Comparisons to Alan Bennett are inevitable in a piece of this nature, but Kydd carves out his own niche. He softens the blows of man’s inhumanity a little more than Bennett might, leaning into a continuous strand of droll comedy.

Nevertheless, in the end, Our Martin in the Background is a touching, well-crafted piece of storytelling. It reminds us that while the pictures on the silver screen may fade, the regrets we carry in the background remain sharp.

Featured Image: Our Martin in the Background Flyer – courtesy Mark Kydd