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Lost Atoms

 
Paul T. Davies Review by Paul T. Davies 4 Published: 7 Nov 2025 Mercury Theatre Show Dates: 4 Nov 2025-8 Nov 2025

It’s always a pleasure to witness a Frantic Assembly play, their trademark physicality adding layers of meaning to any text.

Anna Jordan’s script thrums with honesty and rawness

In Lost Atoms, we meet Jess and Robbie in their Mind Mausoleum, the set high with drawers and boxes that contain their life together and their memories. They climb, crawl, dangle, lie down and set the scenes as they relive their time together, often interrupting each other to correct the memory. It’s a deep dive into how they met and fell in love after an unlikely beginning; his admission of depression, their emerging love for each other, then loss pierces their world, followed by betrayal and ending.

The staging is astonishing, the synergy of movement and memory sublime, and it's a perfect celebration of Frantic Assembly’s 30th anniversary. It is served by two performers who capture the differences, the unlikeliness of the relationship, and ultimately, the love. Joe Layton as Robbie, despite his confident strength and muscularity, captures perfectly Robbie’s vulnerability and loneliness, charting his way through an intense, volatile relationship with no map to guide him.

Hannah Sinclair Robinson is equally mesmerising to watch, her contrasting attitude to life laying down a strong marker for their differences. When he wins £500 on a scratch card, their differences are amusingly exposed: he is The Lion King, she is Hamilton.

Andrzej Goulding’s jaw-dropping set is effectively the third character. The wall of drawers contains memories, mementoes and delights. The actors balance off them, scale them and push chairs into place to set scenes. It’s a kinetic delight.

With such a strong production conceit, there is the danger that the script won’t live up to the visual power, and at times, the constant movement feels a little like filler, stretching out the running time. But Anna Jordan’s script thrums with honesty and rawness, especially when loss and grief hit the couple in the second half. Interestingly, the most powerful scenes are when they sit and absorb bad news, the stillness making the grief palpable. Its exploration of memory, both muscle and mental, will live with you for a long time.

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