The danger for these three comes only partly from within their relationship. We soon learn that Rose once had an affair with Robin and that some of the old flame still burns. But that’s not the reason she’s there, though it helps her mission. She needs both Robin and Hazel for something more heroic, more terrible than a mere tryst. But we only gradually come to learn what it is.

 

It’s very tempting to give away the secret, because so much of the play hangs on it. But to do so would spoil the pleasure and the significance of this slow-burning drama. Instead I’ll point to the slowly mounting sense of tension that builds to a crescendo as the relationship between the three develops. I’ll give a nod to the strange world the characters inhabit, a post-apocalyptic world that has been not so much shattered as distorted by an explosion at the nearby nuclear power station where they once worked. The characters now struggle at the limits of the exclusion zone. But this is no 'Mad Max' scenario, and there is none of the cold apocalypse of Cormac McCarthy’s 'The Road'. Instead there is bread and salad for lunch, the phones work, the taxis still run, and there is Radio 4 on the wind-up radio. But there is danger nevertheless. A Geiger counter is now part of the regular household equipment, and on the smallholding, to which Robin goes daily, his work is to bury their beloved cattle.

 

The play would be extremely ponderous were it not for some fine characterisation and some sharp dialogue and lively performances. Brian Emeney’s direction nicely balances the middle-class sensibilities that are now a vital means of preserving some sense of normalcy against the catastrophe they are now facing. Christine Ingall’s Hazel in particular engages us with her sensible, slightly motherly instincts pushed to their limits by the unwelcome intrusion from Rose and her mission. She shows herself both funny and deeply torn by the demands placed upon her. Annie Gay’s Rose is cool, almost too cool, but has already had her own brush with death and has little to lose. I would have liked her to be a bit tougher in her character to create a greater contrast with the other two, but she showed her character to have courage at the end. Brian Emeney plays Robin with an outwardly strong but inwardly malleable sensibility that is seduced by two powerful attractions, both of which will have irreversible consequences for him as he makes a choice that is nobler and more selfish than anything he has done before.

 

A long three-hander like this requires the actors to have a rapport that is so deep it is instinctive and uncanny. Perhaps because I saw it on its first night, I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t quite there. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating play honourably delivered and with a great deal to say that is prescient to the responsibilities that an older, and in some ways much more privileged generation, has to a younger one that must cope with the consequences of their elders’ misplaced confidence.