Time Bomb - Review at FringeReview.com ( * * * )
It's the year 2017 and Britain is on the edge of being dragged into a nuclear war in the Middle East. One family is in implicated in both its creation and its possible delay; The Clarkes.
George Bernard Shaw always said it was his ambition to "get Blue Books across the Limelights". In other words. he wanted to use his plays as a means of affecting the political mood and hopefully, swaying Government policy. It's not a fashionable stance these days, but this short, urgent, timely little play by Tim Burton (one assumes not that Tim Burton), has those ambitions.
Set ten years in the future, peak oil has arrived and it costs Mr Clarke senior £120 to take his old petrol jag into Newbury; Mrs Clarke is serving fried pollock balls as a delicacy, and members of the family in America are joining Mr Clarke's birthday celebrations by holographic projection (a neat but simple little theatrical trick that's nicely done).
However, technology being what it always is, it takes a while to get it actually working. Hovering around all this are news reports of an impending vote on whether to join America in an assult on Iran, to neutralise its now realised nuclear weapons, even if it means using them ourselves. Without revealing too much of the plot, this is extremely relevant to all generations of the Clarkes, especially Clarke senior, who recieves a nasty surprise in a time capsule he and his nuclear weapons expert father buried fifty years ago to the day, and his daughter, a senior figure in the government.
There are faults with this prodcution; the cast seemed a little nervous and hesitant at times, projecting a bit too much in what is a very naturalistic piece in an intimate space, and some of the staging and emoting was a little clunky, despite the flashes of brilliance that are also present.
However, I suspect these faults will iron themselves out. The important thing is this is a well researched, passionate, eloquently written and serious piece of political theatre, particularly relevant to a Scottish audience in light of the Scottish Parliament's rejection of the renewal of Trident.
