... A Number review… © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 3/15. Caryl Churchill wrote A Number in 2002, when debates around human cloning were at fever pitch. Imp., while the National revived possibly her most famous play, Top Girls. One of Churchill’s themes is the welfare of children, and this play also, ingeniously, functions as a family drama about sibling rivalries and parental abuse. London is enjoying a mini-season of plays by Caryl Churchill – minimal in length but maximal in implication, each attesting to the 81-year-old playwright’s formidable powers of invention and visionary daring. Fine performances by Roger Allam and Colin Morgan galvanise this short, sharp meditation on cloning and identity by Caryl Churchill. 1/15. Things ramp up after the first of several adroit scene changes on Lizzie Clachan’s tatty domestic set when we discover that B1 is himself a clone of Salter’s original son, B2 – Morgan again, but threateningly clenched and cold-eyed. Churchill’s linguistic tics – of interruptions and half-finished sentences – create a hyperreal effect and enable Salter’s obfuscation, or withholding, of the full facts around family life. Clachan also created the set for Far Away and, like that design, this has startling scene changes as the lights drop to black and snap back on to a transformed stage. A Number at London's Bridge Theatre starring Roger Allam and Colin Morgan – review round-up Review Round Ups by Fergus Morgan Top 5 theatre shows to see this week (February 17-23) All rights reserved. • At the Bridge theatre, London, until 14 March. Bridge theatre, London – the relationships between Salter and his offspring, and their differing reactions to finding that they are not unique, are right on the money. 5/15. Theatre A Number – review 5 / 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars. At the Royal Court, we were treated to Michael Gambon in his growling element, and Daniel Craig (pre-Bond) giving stark variations on the same filial character. London; 20 February 2020. “A number” is the simple first line, spoken by a youngish man called Bernard, reeling from surprise information that he’s part of some batch of ‘copies’, quantity unspecified. Other elements help to raise the stakes in Polly Findlay’s production, especially Lizzie Clachan’s set and Peter Mumford’s lighting, which have a noirish quality despite the drab domestic realism – scenes take place inside Salter’s home. Share. Nuffield, Southampton Human individuality is at the heart of Caryl Churchill's brilliantly staged, punchy and discomforting look at cloning He creates a due sense of identicality and difference when the older, “originating” version of Bernard appears – damaged, deeper-voiced – and then a third iteration, pointedly and sweetly untouched by paternal interference. 2/15. Just as Salter’s story begins to unravel, so in a way does his boy – not his first offspring, it transpires, but a replica of an older child, initially posited as having died, along with his mother, but later revealed to be alive, estranged, and vengeful. Allam’s performance is a slow, seedy descent into moral horror, while Morgan quite dazzlingly differentiates three characters with the same face and the same DNA but with wildly divergent personalities shaped by experience. Thursday February 20 2020, 12.01am, The Times. Author. He’s upset, yes, but he can also see a large compensation claim coming. There’s something smart about this; it’s as if Salter is giving a performance of humility through which poke sharp blades of threat and residual menace, like a version of a dad, not the real thing. Some of the effects veer to hammy, especially the garishly melancholic piano interludes. This is the nature versus nurture debate minted anew. But together their performances don’t quite fizz into the full-on chemistry needed to crank up the tension between them. From the right to offend to cancelling Dickens: culture war conundrums Laurence Fox should consider, Theatre in crisis: ‘British culture is world-beating – why leave us behind?’, Neil Mendoza interview: 'This Government cares more about culture than any that I can remember', UK arts leaders in despair: ‘By the time we’re allowed to reopen, we may be too decimated to do so’, Romantics Anonymous, Bristol Old Vic, review: a charming, chocolatey love story that's gooey on the outside and gooey within, Danny Dyer on Harold Pinter, review: pause your laughter, this unlikely pair were like father and son. “I don’t know what I think, I feel terrible,” he splutters, as his father – a man called Salter – offers a mixture of indignation (asserting that Bernard’s DNA must have been stolen) and evasion (which breeds fast-growing suspicions). Available for everyone, funded by readers. If the background logistics are sketchy – who made the human copies, and why? And now, just a week after the Donmar Warehouse revived her 2000 play Far Away, the Bridge Theatre now revives the play that came immediately afterwards, A Number, in 2002. Do you copy? But it threatens to be too muted in such a large space. Johan Persson. The son (Morgan), identified only as B1, is more immediately overcome with the mind-bending idea of having doppelgangers walking the streets, the same but different. Bluebeard. SE1 2SG, ★★★★ 'Magnetic Aimie Atkinson brings power and depth to musical rom-com revival', ★★★★ 'Roger Allam and Colin Morgan give fine performances in Caryl Churchill's nature-nurture debate', ★ 'Two men's internal struggles overshadow beefed-up musical', ★★★★★ 'Antoinette Nwandu's shattering study of racism's dream-stealing power', ★★★★ 'Lesley Manville is magnetic in Tony Kushner's superb, but very long, drama', ★★★★ 'Tom Stoppard's new masterwork is an early contender for play of the year', ★★★ 'Beguiling energy to a passionate debut about breaking down barriers', ★★★★ 'Stunning craft and sinister visions in spine-tingling Caryl Churchill revival', ★★★ 'Lucy Kirkwood's messy but significant work has a gutsy audacity', ★★★★ 'Daniel Radcliffe gives his best stage performance yet in Samuel Beckett double-bill', ★★★★ 'Rafe Spall rages through grief and fury in electrifying one-man play', ★★★★ 'Toby Jones is in his comic prime in a retooled Chekhov for our times', ★★★ 'An exhilarating feminist story but big ideas are unevenly executed', ★★ 'Apartheid battle reduced to an odd-couple double act', ★★★ 'Newcomer Jessica Rhodes is magnetic in Lucy Prebble's prescient play', ★★★★ 'Revamped musical opens at London's Sondheim Theatre with added grit', ★★★ 'Forget subtlety — it’s all about the bants', ★★★ 'Fine performances in intellectually strenuous play', ★★★★ 'Revival feels more nimble and resonant than ever', ★★★★★ 'Elena Ferrante's story makes a triumphant transition to stage', ★★★ 'A standout emotional and vocal performance from Sam Tutty', ★★★★ 'This jukebox musical is an absolute blast and features a powerful turn from Miriam-Teak Lee', ★★★★ 'This feel-good extravaganza defies both logic and pessimism', ★★★★ 'It’s not just a physical challenge that’s dramatised, but a moral one too', ★★★★ 'A sure hit that dares to be different', A Number review: Roger Allam and Colin Morgan give fine performances in Caryl Churchill's nature-nurture debate.

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