Jamie Sefton delivers a passionate, comprehensive and incredibly well researched performance in A Thousand Sons. In 1952 the UK tested its first atomic bomb. The young soldiers who took part were used as guinea pigs and were never warned about the dangers involved in what they were doing.
A passionate, comprehensive and incredibly well researched performance
As a young service man on Christmas Island, Bertrand Cooper describes the shared emotions in the run up to the detonation, the lack of safety equipment and clothing and afterwards of feeling the bones in his hands through closed eyes. It was harrowing experience for many young service men.
The details of these events have been powerfully constructed and explained through what appears to be a biographical perspective. However, Sefton is clearly not old enough to have been anywhere near these catastrophic events.
The shocking statistics Sefton details throughout the performance are disgraceful. Around 22,000 service men and their families were left with lasting illnesses and life threatening conditions from their loyal service to the United Kingdom, without any acknowledgement or thank you from the Government up to the present time.
Sefton has given the Veterans involved in these horrific events a voice and platform for audiences to hearof these atrocities and take away a greater understanding of the events. It is an education about the impact on the men’s health and the recurring damage it has had in the succeeding seventy years. Now, he says, they deserve official recognition along with an overdue apology.
The information and emotional impact the of this forty-five minute performance will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on many. I fail to see that anyone could not be moved by these devastating events and left disgusted by the lack of official acknowledgement.
