Peter Viney's Blog

Adapted from Andrew Haigh’s 2015 film, based on a short story by David Constantine
Adapted for the stage by Hannah Patterson

Directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah
Designed by James Cotteril
Composer Ruth Barrett

Minerva Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre

Tuesday 23rd June 2026, 14.14

CAST
Gabriel Byrne- Geoff
Geraldine James – Kate
Gillian Bevan – Lena

From the Chichester website:

Buried for decades, the body of a young woman is found in the melting ice. A thousand miles and 45 years away… a crack forms in the crystal of a marriage.
It’s the week leading up to Kate and Geoff’s wedding anniversary and preparations for the party are in full swing. As they choose the music for their first dance, a letter from Switzerland quietly shatters their world.
Is the past another country? Or are the secrets in the attic of our memory destined to return?

MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS. If you have booked tickets, stop here and come back.

For more than a dozen years we have had total trust in Chichester Festival Theatre productions. If it was on, we booked it. Maybe not next year. This year several Minerva Theatre plays looked uninviting. It was a toss up between this and Atlantis. Normally, we’d have booked both. We didn’t.

This is just a two parter though occasional interventions from the third actor might lift it to a 2.25 parter. A two parter at £39 a ticket too. It needs two chairs and a slide projector. It’s 80 minutes long. A one act play. It should be at Poole Sherling Studio, Bath Ustoniv or Salisbury Salzburg. Even Chichester’s smaller theatre, the Minerva, overwhelms its intrinsic content .

They’ve tried to compensate, or gild the lily, with three levels of lighted steps, carpeting over the whole stage, adding a chest of drawers and a Bose clock radio. The loft door is important and well done suspended above, but there would have been easier ways around it in a studio. Some of the lighting is incredibly irritating. There’s an intermittent lighted ‘drip’ at rear stage right. Is it the glacier melting? Rain outside? The toilet that needs a new ballcock? Both of us found it visually annoying.

The concept is a play about people in their seventies, which at Chichester matinees hits the central point of the audience age (some older, some younger). Gabriel Byrne in the programme says that there are not enough roles for older actors. Gabriel Byrne is 76. Geraldine James is a few weeks younger. Gillian Bevan, as the friend Lena, is seventy.

Gabriel Byrne as Geoff, Geraldine James as Kate

I’ll tell you where the play starts to go wrong, and it’s an easy repair. Many years ago, Geoff’s girlfriend fell into a deep crevasse in Switzerland. Her body has just been found, but is deep within transparent ice. Geoff has been notified by the Swiss Authorities because he was ‘Next of Kin’ in their reports, and Geoff has kept his address updated over several house moves. The trouble is, he had never told Kate about her or the traumatic incident.

KATE: And how old was she?
GEOFF: Two years or so older than me. And this was seventy-three so, that’s what …?
KATE: About twenty-seven.
GEOFF: Yes.

I am a nitpicker on dates and time lines. So Geoff was 25 in 1973? So was I. Gabriel Byrne himself was near enough. OK, so the play centres around preparations for Geoff and Kate’s 45th Wedding Anniversary. So when did they get married? The tale is based on a 2015 film, and it can’t be that year. That means they were married in 1970. Geoff is clear that all this happened sometime before he met Kate. So is it set “now” in 2026? That brings their marriage to 1981, so a lot later than the incident. I’d have to guess that “now” as circa 2020 fits better. But does it? Geoff is distracted by the news, but he shows irascibility, a little memory tweaking needed. I know that age. Unfortunately. It fits the actors’ real ages, now in 2026, best. Both of them make it “real” for 2026.

Why is the time of the incident so important? Because the play is in very short scenes, broken up by blackouts with snatches of music. The music doesn’t fit the timelines. OK, I write about music history. Wrong person to comment maybe. I’ll come back to that.

Kate is upset, because she was never told. It’s a 45 year lie, or rather economical with the truth. Fair enough, but in saying she does’t want to hear the name and asking about her hair colour it drifts to jealousy. Geoff says they’d been in the mountains six or seven weeks and were aiming for Italy. He is “next of kin” because they had to pretend to be married to get accommodation. A tip if the play is revised, true, but there is a good reason. In 1973 in many cantons of Switzerland it was illegal to rent rooms to unmarried couples, a Calvinist hangover. The hotel or guest house would be fined. I know that because I had two colleagues with Swiss girlfriends and it was a major issue for them. Swiss hotels then asked to see passports, though ‘Just married’ would cover that. I worked for a Swiss school for ten years. That brings up Geoff struggling with German – he says accurately that he can’t remember the verbs so well, only the nouns. That figures, and they employed a German speaking guide … but if they’re near the Swiss-Italian border, then the local language would be Swiss-Italian, not Swiss-German.

Lena is the useful friend and visitor, showing baby photos of grandkids on her phone. Yes, we all do that. Geoff and Kate have few photos because they’re childless, and compensated with a series of dogs, as people do. My old and childless boss was deeply fond of his 15 year old waddling and limping spaniel, which still bore the name ‘Puppy.’ It’s a good job dogs don’t speak English.

Geoff starts exploring the loft. When he’s out, Kate goes up there and finds he has set up a slide projector. She switches on, and we see very well-done and varied 70s travel slides (though on the B&W ones few used B&W slide film). Then comes the revelation on a slide. A MAJOR PLOT SPOILER. You may want to stop here.

The girlfriend, Katya, was pregnant. Late stage pregnant. This is what is so devastating for the childless Kate. Kate and Geoff probably pre-date the extensive testing in recent years, so it means that Geoff was fertile. OK, that brings up other questions. How is Katya high in the Alps walking about for six or seven weeks? Geoff has said she was walking well ahead with the guide and out of sight behind a rock when she fell. Also she and the guide were flirting and laughing. That jars with advanced pregnancy.

Then there is potential food for thought. None of the threads are followed through. Kaya and Kate, almost the same name. The flirting with the guide upset Geoff. We are told by Lena that Geoff has a ferocious temper because he called her a fascist for saying Thatcher had some good points. That’s not significant as a pointer to potential violence. I’ve been to those garden parties and seen that discussion. Alcohol doesn’t calm such conversations. I would have upped the temper a bit to make us wonder about what really happened. but then the guide was there.

The acting is as expected of a high standard. We have liked Geraldine James since the History Man and The Britass Empire. I complain that Gabriel Byrne’s use of the audience on three sides meant some important lines were with his back to us (I’d place important lines further back on the thrust stage so all three sides can see. That’s stage direction, not an acting issue). He has an authentic delivery, but that means muttering too. If you’re going to turn your back, you need to project more.

Gillian Bevan as Lena brings in a breath of energy when she appears and interrupts the languid discussions.

Back to the music. This couple have chosen ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes‘ the song played at their anniversary for their 45th. The Platters. 1959. Really? I’ve seen the surviving Platters live. The song works beautifully at the end, but it’s not ‘talking about my generation.’ Then Geoff and Kate met at a rock ‘n’ roll dance, and Stagger Lee is played, and the Lloyd Price 1958 hit version, they dance. May I suggest adding ‘Revival’ after ‘Rock and Roll’ and before ‘Dance.’ Rock revival was popular with the likes of Dart in the late 70s, and could include doo-wop and by extension The Platters, but the original versions of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Lloyd Price’s Stagger Lee would see both of them between Infants school and Junior school.

Later they choose the songs for the 45th. Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth, The Turtles Happy Together, Marvin Gaye Your Precious Love, Sly & The Family Stone Higher and Higher. Good choices for my generation, they evoke late teenage … but it would seem they met in their late 20s at the earliest. I think their soundtrack would be 70s, not 60s.

It interested me because the writer loves music. There are some esoteric choices, like Lee Hazlewood and Roy Orbison’s Blue Bayou. Also the music played over the Minerva sound system sounds superb. Kate says she always hated Young Girl. Yes, the lyrics (my love for you is way out of line, you’re much too young girl) would never be acceptable today.

The final dance is poignant. The song, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, sounded better than I’ve heard it and all the emotion was etched on their faces. Given the three sides a revolve would have helped.

How terribly strange to be seventy …

Paul Simon, ‘Old Friend.’

Yes it is. It doesn’t improve as you move through your 70s either. I’m not sure that we wanted a theatrical reminder of that. It’s not entertaining. I think three stars is generous. Karen is two. I’m hovering, but yes, two.

**

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
four star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ****
Gareth Carr, What’s On Stage ****
Stephen Gillett, Theatre & Tonic ****

three star
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ***
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***
Hywel Farrow-Wilton, All That Dazzles ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

PRASANNA PUWANARAJAH (Director)

Twelfth Night, RSC 2025
Venice Preserved by Thomas Otway, RSC 2019

GERALDINE JAMES
As You Like It, RSC 2023
The History Man (TV series)

GILLIAN BEVAN
Cymbeline, RSC 2016 (Cymbeline)
Hamlet, (Maxine Peake) NT Live 2015 (Polonia)