Sometimes theatre does more than simply entertain us, sometimes it reminds us of what it means to be human and how delicate life can be. This is one of those plays.
The story of a young girl caught up in the 7/7 bombings, this one woman performance is a heart-rending account of her desperate internal fight for survival. Told in the first-person, the audience is invited to join on her on her journey, from the moment she wakes on that fateful morning to weeks’ down the line when she is lying in her hospital bed. We hear her thoughts and what she is feeling every step of the way; her excitement about finishing the book she is reading contrasts with the agonisingly vivid descriptions of her injuries and her distress about her strained relationship with her mother who she may never speak to again, is followed by a questioning of religious doctrine.
The play covers many of the debates that followed the bombings, not providing us with answers but giving us room to remember and think about our own feelings towards what happened. Nellie McQuinn, who also wrote the play which was originally inspired by a friend of hers who died at a young age, gives an incredibly moving performance which you would have to be made of stone not to be touched by; I for one was on the verge of tears many times, whilst a woman next to me openly wept.
Whilst there were some small staging issues for me – at one point she sits on the floor very close to the front row which made her invisible and barely audible to half the audience, a shame for us as she was full flow by that point – this is nevertheless a play which you should see.
(All proceeds from ticket sales of this play are going to the British Red Cross to help UK victims of terrorism abroad)
