Nuclear Family
Pulse Festival, New Wolsey Theatre.
10 June 2017
3 Stars
Presented as an inquiry into the meltdown of Ashtown Nuclear Plant, this interactive piece by Sunday’s Child and Fever Dream Theatre asks the audience to step in and make decisions that will affect the outcome of the drama. Racing against the clock, and with strictly timed discussion points, the majority choices are then acted out.
It takes a while to get going, the opening scene establishing recent history and problems with the plant, and the relationship between siblings Joe and Ellen, who become trapped when disaffected former workers break in and enter the control room. Anne O’Riordan and Aidan O’Callaghan work well as the siblings, creating a good sense of tension as the play progresses. The scenario would have benefited from being a little more realistic; some of the circumstances presented appeared highly unlikely. More character development would have also allowed us to invest more deeply in the unfolding drama.
That said, the stakes were raised in increasing levels of danger, and the audience participation became very lively, even though the outcomes were pretty much set from the start.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PULSE FESTIVAL
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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