The Children review, Royal Court

Three retired nuclear physicists meet in a coastal cottage a few months after a Fukushima-type nuclear reactor meltdown, caused by a tsunami. Hazel and Robin have been married forty years. Forced from their home by the reactor disaster, they're living in a borrowed cottage, unable to abandon the area in which they have lived, worked, and raised The Children. Enter Rose, who Hazel hasn't seen in all that time, but around whom Robin is strangely familiar...

The Children cleverly uses the relationships between the three, now in their mid and late-sixties, to explore the fallout of seismic activity at both micro and macro level. Why would Hazel, preoccupied with yoga and healthy living, think Rose had killed herself? Why is Rose, an elegant returnee from America, asking so many questions about the couple's four children? The dialogue between the women sizzles with tension. And what about Robin, who lusts after big-breasted dairymaids, lights cigarettes on his thigh, and illegally enters the confinement zone every day?

Ultimately The Children is about taking responsibility for decisions made and actions taken, and at what point the greater good is more important than small slights. Writer Lucy Kirkwood is strong on ethics and plot as we saw in NSFW and Chimerica, but her characters are often like chess pieces - their purpose is strategic. In The Children, she has slowed it down, taking clear pleasure creating protagonists who are complete in themselves and embody, rather than represent, the story she's telling.  There is no crash-bang-wallop under James Macdonald's balletic direction. Deborah Findlay, Ron Cook, and Francesca Annis, bring Hazel, Robin, and Rose into sharp focus despite the desolation all around.

In conclusion: The Children runs nearly two hours without an interval. Younger punters alongside me were restless. The complex machinations within Miriam Buether's deceptively simple kitchen set, may feel to them like yet another set of life-changing mistakes for which to point the finger of blame at their elders. For the over-40s, there's a lot to ruminate on.


Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AS.    Run ends 14 January 2017