The Unreturning

I was delighted to get the opportunity to see this play. It was first performed as recently as 2018. The piece was developed by Frantic Assembly, working in collaboration with the author Anna Jordan, to produce this cutting-edge contemporary theatre. It’s great to see local theatre taking on such a new and challenging piece of art.

The play is set across three timescales – each showing the impact on a young man returning from conflict. George – returning from the First World War; Frankie in 2013 returning from Afghanistan; and Nat – in the future, fighting in Norway, returning to the aftermath of a destructive civil war in the UK.

“I want to return to my home” – a line, and theme, repeated through the play. Whatever the timeframe each combatant wanted to return to their home, to normality. Each suffered the mental anguish of their conflict.

The set design replicated the original Frantic Assembly production – and is wonderfully inventive. Imagine what looks like a small shipping container in the centre of the stage. The side of the container was used to project films of conflicts to create the atmosphere for the performance.

Each side of the container opens with various doors. The whole container is on a turn table so we can see different angles, for different scenes.  Using this carefully constructed central effect (and a great team of stage crew, and the performers, to move it round) the theatre created a huge number of varying locations. We were transported to bedrooms, bars, ships across the North Sea, hospitals, living rooms etc – an almost endless list.

And the scene changes were slick and smooth. Well done to everyone involved in the construction and the movement of the set on stage.

At each side of the stage were piles of pallets – again these were creatively used to give the effect of additional locations, and all worked well.

Callum Johnson (playing George) was excellent in showing the dreadful mental effects of warfare. His descent into shell shock was totally convincing and heart-breaking. Yet, after the First World War, society was unsure how to treat him. His young wife, Rose (played by Cirilla Neiles) didn’t understand what had happened to her husband and why his behaviour had changed. This was sympathetically portrayed – it was clear any lack of understanding was just the culture of the time, and not any lack of love for her husband.

Adam Wade playing Frankie had great physical presence on stage, making the character real. A bit of a ‘lad’ who’d signed up. Leaving his mates and drinking buddies behind. But however physically strong the character may be, it became clear the mental consequences of his time in the forces were hard to handle.  Frankie’s interaction with his mates was believable, the fighting was well staged and performed. Being able to deal with this physical conflict contrasted well to Frankie having to deal with the mental strain of a journalist exposing him for allegedly attacking a civilian during the conflict. Frankie delivered a number of lines looking upward rather than at other characters or to the audience (for the monologues), it was unclear what effect the director was aiming for with this.

Nat was played by Alex Wright. With this character being from the future, and in an imaginary conflict, everything had to be created by his performance – there are no films to rely on here to create context!  Alex did this admirably. Well wrapped up in thick coats and scarves (as the character was in Norway, and then crossing the sea) – Alex must have been roasting but convinced us that Nat was in colder climes.

In particular, the scene on the boat, illicitly crossing the North Sea to re-enter the UK was excellently played by Alex and his shipmates.

It was unclear exactly when Nat’s scene was set. The Director’s programme notes refer to 2026, but the synopsis refers to 2030.

Finn is the younger sibling of Nat, who had stayed in the UK during the future conflict.  Nat is coming home with the aim of ensuring Finn’s safety. The original play has Finn played as a brother of Nat – in this production it was played as a younger sister. This worked – although perhaps the name of Finn could have been modified to more clearly indicate this was now a female character. We don’t meet Finn until the very end of the play – for a dramatic (and well performed) reunion.  We have heard references to Finn but not met the character at all until this stage. Finn’s only entrance was made from the back of the auditorium, in semi dark. We didn’t know, nor could see, who this character was. Finn has a moving monologue (also starting with “I want to return to my home”) but we didn’t get the full effect, or see facial expressions, because most of this was delivered from the central aisle.  Finn was played by Emily Pinches who had clear vocal delivery.  As the many other locations had all been created on stage it would have been good to see Emily’s full performance also in front.

The principal cast was very well supported by an ensemble of performers playing multiple roles, including friends, army officers, doctors, shipmates, journalist, and mother – and also narrating some sections to develop the storyline.  On top of this the cast were involved in moving the ‘container’ set around.

The scene between Frankie and his mother (Rachel Perrin) was hard hitting and very moving.

Congratulations to Ed Green, Josh Besso, Doug Connor-Webb, Rachel Perrin, Curtis Washburn and Phil Perry – for your versatility in costume changes, multiple characters and cameo roles.

The costumes really reflected the various timeframes of the piece and also allowed for some quick changes – all these were well done.

Props were appropriately minimal – as the narrative is largely created by the characters’ performances, and quickly changing locations, rather than complete dressing of the sets. However, use of some personal props could be developed. One character drank from a beer bottle but, from the angle, this was clearly empty.  Two take-away coffee cups were used in one scene – from the way they were moved around they clearly didn’t have hot coffee in them; then they were held at an angle so we could see they were empty. One then fell over.  Had they had the plastic take-away lids on them this could have been more convincing.

Lighting was used effectively to create atmosphere and focus attention on the various locations created before our eyes.  I saw the production on opening night and there were a few occasions when the performers were not fully lit, or slightly off mark.

On this night the house lights also came on before the closing of Act I – leaving a performer on stage, in tableau, and we didn’t know the Act had ended.  Disappointing – as the cast then missed out on the huge applause, they deserved for that first Act.

Laura Elizabeth (director) has taken on a challenging piece – and brought us a moving narrative. The use of the staging was well rehearsed and supported the performers to bring the story to life.

Thank you for an enjoyable evening’s theatre.

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