27th March The Children are the future


Last night I had a little jolly into Nottingham to the theatre. It was a deliberate attempt to break up Holy Week and give me an evening where I was not sat at my computer tinkering with the fine details of upcoming services, invariaby ending up trying to dot  t's and crossing i's.

The play I went to see was a three hander called The Children'. I knew nothing about it save soem good reviews from previous touring shows,but at just £12 for a night of live theatre I though tit was worth a punt. And it turned out to be good value for money. It was at times tense and funny although not nearly half as funny as a couple of people with learning difficulties in the audience seemed to find, an occurance that proved to some a distraction they struggled to cope with.

Set on a single stage featuring a kitchen, the play was set in the aftermath of what was called 'the disaster' that had occured at a nuclear power plant some 50 miles away. With electricity rationed and a Geiger counter always at hand to check radiation levels, Hazel and Robin, two retired nuclear scientists, continued to try to live life as normally as possible; daily phone chats with their daughter, Radio 4 on in the background and a daily dose of yoga. 

They even brewed their own parsnip wine, but the arrival of old friend Rose, after 38 years begins to open up cracks in the facade and memories surface that threaten their entire future. Was she going to attempt to rekindle her affair with Robin or was there another reason for her visit?

A slow burner that took a while to get going, which probably explained why there was no interval, it raised profound questions about the passage of time and what are are social and moral responsibilites. What might we we be prepared to sacrifice in order to protect the future of the next generation, whether we find ourselves like Hazel and Robin who have four children of their own, or Rose hasn't actually produced 'her own' next generation.

A lovely evening out in a lovely little theatre and a very welcome break from the Holy Week treadmill.




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