The Children
by Lucy Kirkwood

Directed by Carrie Cable

Tuesday 20 – Saturday 24 February 2024, 7.45pm, studio

The setting is an old, isolated cottage near the sea. Hazel and Robin are eking out their lives as the world around them crumbles. Something has gone very wrong at the nearby nuclear power station and the local area has been devastated. There has been a radiation leak and electricity and water have been rationed. Then Rose, an old colleague arrives. They reminisce on their lives, love affairs, marriage, parenthood and ageing. 

But all three were nuclear scientists who worked at the plant in their youth.

The implications of the disaster and consequences for the land, the environment and the young scientists and others who work at the plant are becoming clear and the conversations take a different turn.

REVIEWS

The play premiered at The Royal Court Theatre in 2016 and has been performed in the USA, Canada and Australia. The Guardian placed the play third on its list of greatest theatrical works since 2000.

 ‘Kirkwood…has…written a genuinely disturbing play: one not simply about nuclear power but about the heavy price we may pay in the future for the profligacy of the present’. - The Guardian

‘…a richly suggestive and beautifully written piece of work…Kirkwood is the most rewarding dramatist of her generation.’ —The Independent

‘THE CHILDREN is tantalisingly hard to define: it is about aging and responsibility…It is very English, somewhat menacing, and often funny…What THE CHILDREN is not is a polemic about the oft-cited irresponsibility of baby boomers; instead it rather penetratingly asks what they owe younger generations, exactly. —Time Out.