REVIEW: A NUMBER BY CARYL CHURCHILL AT MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY, LONDON

REVIEW: A NUMBER BY CARYL CHURCHILL AT MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY, LONDON

Timothy and Sam West star in Caryl Churchill's A Number/ Pic: Manuel Harlan

Friday October 8,2010

By Julie Carpenter

WHEN Caryl Churchill wrote this two hander in 2002, Dolly the Sheep was alive and well and cloning was an issue discussed around the water fountain.

Its topicality may have waned but while scientists continue to talk about our genetic predisposition towards anything from a cold to a killer instinct, this multi-faceted 50 minute play will still be relevant: its as much about what makes us the person we are (the nature/nurture debate) as it is about cloning.
There is an air of the futuristic horror story at the outset when an eerie green light illuminates the stage ceiling, revealing a grid full of identical test tubes.


We then witness a fraught discussion between a father, Salter, and his son, Bernard, who has discovered he is not his father's "original" child but is one of "a number" of clones.

 

Salter and his "sons" are played by real life father-and-son

It's a bit of a revelation for Salter, too. It turns out he knew his son was a clone but thought he was the only one made and is digesting the news that the geneticist he hired for the job actually created about 20. The disclosures come thick and fast as Bernard has an understandable crisis of identity and is forced to re-evaluate his father's character while we are introduced to the "real" son and one of the other clones.

What gives this production extra punch is that Salter and his "sons" are played by real life father-and-son Timothy and Sam West, who first performed the play at the Sheffield Crucible four years ago. Timothy creates a blinking, crumpled figure whose crimes have been masked by age while Sam, with a couple of deft costume changes, effectively switches between the alarmed Bernard to the hostile "original" Bernard to the blithely untouched clone, Michael.

Performed in the round, so heightening the sense of intimacy, the fragmented dialogue never gives us the whole picture. We are given brief encounters but while it all seems deceptively minimalist, the play's genius is that it raises a host of issues that keep you thinking long after you leave.

Churchill's point is ultimately that nurture is the winner in the nature/nurture debate: the discarded original Bernard is resentful and murderous as an adult, the well-treated Bernard clone is sensitive and better adjusted while Salter can find no connection whatsoever with the nice-but-boring maths teacher Michael.

Each clone, in other words, has his own distinct identity - much like this intriguing play.

Box office: 0207 907 7060, until November 5

Verdict: 4/5