The Truth About Harry Beck – Cubic Theatre
The iconic London Tube Map is known the world over. But what about the man who invented it? Very little is known about Harry Beck, until now.
Enter Andy Burden, writer and director, who’s made it his mission to shine a light on this quiet genius who changed the way we see and understand London.
It’s funny when you think about it, the Tube map is such a taken for granted thing. Stations are leisurely dotted along coloured lines, circles show how you can change routes, and in one complete and easily digestible format, you can get where you want to go. It’s a remarkable feat of compression and visual ingenuity to distil the London Underground’s 250 miles of track and 272 stations across 11 lines into one handy map. But that’s what Harry Beck did.
Photo: Mark Douet
Sadly, when he d...