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22 May 2008 North Wiltshire Gazette and Herald He is clearly panic-struck. She's tracked him down through a picture in a trade magazine picked up in a doctor's waiting room - even though he's changed his name. What does she want? Why has she come and what is he afraid of? It is an extraordinarily intense and powerful drama, sustained by two actors, Robert Daws and Dawn Steele. It deals with the taboo of under-age sex, exploring the affect the affair had on the subsequent lives of the two people involved - and all those closely associated with them. More than that, it looks at the two people they were and why it happened, as well as who they are now. Writer David Harrower pulls no punches and offers no easy answers to the questions he poses. Nothing is clear cut and moral judgements are left to the audience, if they want to make them. The fact that the whole play - which runs for 90 minutes without an interval - takes place in the office canteen, strewn with litter from its thoughtless users, may be some kind of metaphor for the state of their lives or at least their minds. Just as the two characters seem to have battled their way to calmer waters and resolved some of the bitterness left by their abrupt separation with so many unanswered questions 15 years ago, another character appears briefly to set all the alarms jangling again. Robert Daws and Dawn Steele deliver highly charged emotional performances. Their pain is almost tangible as they recall the aftermath of their forbidden liaison, the effect on the girl's family, and how she was ostracised by her closest friends. He recalls nightmare years in jail, branded a pervert and reviled by fellow inmates. Finally they confront their feelings for one another now - and find that past, present and future are inextricably bound together. Taken from here |