Play: Land of Our Fathers

Surprisingly, it's over a month since I booked Land of Our Fathers, at Trafalgar Studios! I'm not normally so organised - it was a slow day, as I recall. Anyway, I got a Time Out offer - now expired - and then just had to remember to head along tonight.

I seem to be developing a really good sense of how late I can push it, when deciding at what time to leave. This evening, I made it with five minutes to spare. Mind you, it really shows that you can't believe the estimated times at Tube stations - the estimate to Embankment was 17 mins, but it took more like 25. I also had a moment's pause, when leaving the station and trying to remember where Northumberland Avenue was. Left, under the bridge, I remembered after a moment. It's been a while.. then it's easy, just head up the road towards Trafalgar Square, cross and take the next left - it's visible at that point, across the road.

As I approached, you wouldn't know this was still showing. Enormous signs for East Is East, the next play in Studio 2 after this leaves on Saturday, dominate the façade. As you draw near, you can see a much smaller sign for Richard III on the awning. Despite its high profile, I guess the other one is the one they want to promote - Richard III has been around a while. It's not until you draw level with the building that you see the poster for Land of Our Fathers.

Downstairs, as usual - I'm usually in Studio 2, here. Most people had taken their seats already, and there was some confusion to find mine, considering that someone was sitting in it. Anyway, I don't know what he was thinking, but his seat was just one up, and all he had to do was budge up a bit (these are bench seats). I was at the edge of the centre section, facing the stage rather than side-on, and in the back row. Well, along the centre there are only three rows anyway. It's cosy. All the more cosy, considering how closely we were sitting to each other - I was wedged in, a gent either side. And both needed to spread their legs. I was much more comfortable in the second act, when the guy who'd been sitting in my seat decided not to return. Not there, anyway. Just as well - he also had a laugh so loud I couldn't hear the next lines, after a joke.

The play is set in a Welsh coalmine, in which six miners are trapped. The year is 1979, and the soundtrack we hear as the play starts is excellent. Speaking of music.. what is it with Welsh fiction and singing? I saw Pride a while back, and the Welsh characters burst into song (an extra to the actual plot) - the play tonight both starts and ends with a song. In Welsh. Might be Land of My Father, the Welsh anthem - I'm not familiar with it. Anyway, I'm not complaining - they're excellent singers (in both cases).

The first scene tells us exactly who they are, by means of a huge standard bearing the logo of the Mining Company of South Wales, or some such thing. They're all stood around it, in suits, singing. The room goes dark as they enter. Actually, there's a warning sign about that at the entrance, as I noticed at the interval, when we were made to leave so we wouldn't see what they were setting up for the second act. Complete dark, to mimic the complete natural darkness, 1000 feet underground. Or, well, it would've been, except for the lady over the far end who was still sending that text. Now, I appreciate the attraction of getting some messages sent. But, you know, it's not only sound that intrudes on a performance. At last, she finished what she was doing, and we could enjoy not seeing anything.

This blackout occurred periodically during the play - in one case, for several minutes, with the actors delivering their lines in the dark. Freakish, when it goes on for a while. You do get a real sense of the sheer terror of being trapped underground - particularly so far underground - with no way out. The wait to be rescued goes on and on. The sound of a drill brings hope that help is on its way - with silence comes despair.

In the meantime, they survive as best they can. They make a plan, they interact. We learn a bit about their lives, their shared history, their hopes for the future. The play is alternately hilarious, and emotionally shattering. The most shocking thing of all is that this stunner of a play is a debut. Well done, that man! Very highly recommended, runs until Saturday.

Coming home, I made the station in perfect time for my train, and the only excitement was the guy sitting across from me, who kept swishing his head in odd directions, so as to see in his reflection in the window how his floppy hairstyle would fall.

I have to keep reminding myself of the order of things. Tomorrow is Breeders, in the St. James Theatre - a comedy starring Angela Griffin and Tamzin Outhwaite as a lesbian couple who want the brother of one to inseminate the other, so they can have the DNA of both. Another one I got on a Time Out offer (since expired). Friday is another comedy - Rudy's Rare Records, starring Lenny Henry, in the Hackney Empire. And Saturday is Sequence 8 at Sadler's Wells - the last day of performances of this show.