Breaking the Code

I grew up in the years following World War Two and I was fascinated by stories of spies and their use of codes to forward messages around Europe and when the story of the development of the Turing Computer was released I spent many hours reading all I could about this forerunner of the modern P.C. I was therefore delighted to receive an invitation to see this production of “Breaking the Code” by Hugh Whitemore, telling the story of  Alan Turing who was considered to be one of the first to provide a general purpose computer.   The tragic. true story of this brilliant yet sometimes very naïve man made a fascinating evening’s entertainment. It was interesting from the historical context how the law, attitudes and treatment of homosexuals have changed since the 1950s. Although the inquest determined that his death was suicide and his mother and others believed it an accident, was there indeed a cover up?  The play, obviously, revolves around the actor playing the role of Turing and Blackburn Drama Club have certainly made the right choice in casting Martin Pugh in the part. We  quickly began to see the various facets of this  complex character and Mr Pugh’s performance was simply stunning. Very rarely off stage he held the audience in the palm of his hand. A consummate performance! Supporting roles were also very well cast and as a result, the evening was a resounding success. Director Roger Boardman has brought out the best from this talented group of actors. Costumes and props were appropriate to the period and together with lighting and sound, especially the well researched music, made this an evening I shall long remember.

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