Review: THE CHILDREN, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks

Lucy Kirkwood’s 2016 play The Children, now revived at the Lyric Hammersmith in a fine production, is nothing if not timely. In a week when government is advising us to stockpile food in case of an environmental disaster or cyber attack, this play about a group of survivors after some kind of catastrophe is definitely food for thought.

In fact, the play is not so much about survival but guilt: guilt on the part of parents who worked in the nuclear industry and who now recognise the great and ongoing damage being caused by leaks and pollution from the reactor where they all worked.

In their different ways, all three characters feel this guilt, but it is new arrival Rose (Kerry Fox) who has a plan for action. Gathering together the scientists and engineers she worked with thirty years ago, she hopes to persuade some of them to go back through the exclusion zone to the radioactive nuclear plant which they all built. Her plan is that, given time, they will be able to make the plant safe and thus reduce further harm to future generations and to their children.

Kerry Fox creates a totally believable figure, brave beneath the brittle exterior despite already showing signs of becoming ill. It is a detailed, nervy and gradually sympathetic performance, and we warm to her as the action enfolds. Robin and Hazel, living in a cottage near the farm where they once worked are, in their different ways, trying to blot out the potential of what has happened – and for which they also feel responsible. The sudden delighted dance sequence tells us all we need to know about how these three people once worked together so closely.

As Robin, travelling into the exclusion zone to the farm every day to tend the cows, he says, Declan Conlon is a bluff and comic figure at first, before we gradually learn more about him, his physical state and his unresolved tensions. It’s a clever performance, sketched in broadly at  first and then illuminated and decorated by little gestures, glances and outbursts. 

Completing this trio of accomplished actors is the peerless Meera Syal as Hazel, shoeless and unsettled, attempting to focus on home life but always unsettled by the outside world she tries to shun. At first amusing, and adept as always at the well-delivered one-liner, she gradually reveals the bitter emptiness of a life without purpose and a family lost. Her eventual decision is heart-breaking, her face crumpling, but is also essentially true to the character, who Syal makes totally believable.

Gary McCann’s set and Anna Watson’s lighting make use of the height of the Lyric stage to give us a sense of the looming power station as well as the cottage in which the action is set. The interview with McCann in the programme is well worth a read too. Rachel O’Riordan directs, and has created a definitive production of this important play. Her deft touch is apparent in the small moments (some fine cigarette acting, which seems to be making a comeback) as well as in the larger ones like the return of power to the cottage leading to a decision on the part of the inhabitants.

A worthy production of a timely play, and a trio of satisfying performances.

***** Five stars

Reviewed by: Chris Abbott

The Children plays at London’s Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until 3 Oct, with tickets available here.