The play revolves around a couple, William and Margaret/Billy and Maggie, who are depicted at two key stages in their lives. Moving from England was their first leap of faith, setting up Billy's dentistry business another, but a lifetime later it is the sick, frail Maggie who is doing the jumping, and she needs Billy to help her prepare. Her television work includes My Fragile Heart, Murder, Sex Traffic, Tsunami – The Aftermath, White Girl, Royal Wedding, Birdsong, The Hour, River and The Split. An example of this was when a low level, soft music played in the background and the young couple were lit in a soft spotlight that contrasted against the rest of the blacked-out stage (to represent the night time). You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Wheelchair spaces and their adjacent seats for accompanying guests are not available to book online. The production stayed with me for a long time after I had seen it, as for me it illustrated the fragility of life and relationships, and the naturalistic, raw emotional response to separation through death. That sometimes bumpy relationship is drawing to a close as Maggie’s increasing and terminal frailty forces the couple into making some drastic preparations. He touches on where the idea came from and focuses on a particularly important scene and the building blocks used in its creation.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This created the impression of the old couple’s love and passion having burned out, whilst the young couple’s relationship appeared vibrant and optimistic for the future. The kitchen and bedroom of Maggie and Billy's house, where the walls were never scribbled on by longed-for children, are stalked by the ghosts of their younger selves: the smooth-skinned, radiant Margaret (Leanne Rowe) and William (Edward Bennett). uk to discuss your individual requirements, and you'll hopefully see our new site and products soon! An aspect of the set left open to interpretation was the use of the autumn leaves scattered across the stage floor; I believed this was symbolic of decay and time passing.

Abi Morgan is a British playwright whose plays have been widely performed at theatres across the country, including the Donmar Warehouse, Traverse Theatre and Hampstead Theatre.

Both men wore brown button down shirts, whilst in one of the scenes Maggie is seen wearing a scarf of the same blue colour as the dress Margaret was wearing in the previous scene. It's hardly surprising: Abi Morgan's love story, spanning the 40-year marriage of Maggie (Siân Phillips) and Billy (Sam Cox), is as tender as the bruised peaches that fall to the ground in the garden of the elderly couple's US home. Rather than just getting the bill and admitting we were on different pages we chatted about the similarities! If this sounds tricksy (add in powerful video backdrops and an intensely moving underscore), it isn’t – all is perfectly pitched and done with beautifully judged finesse. It's not often that you hear mass sobbing in the theatre, but it's all sniffles during the latter stages of this new Frantic Assembly show.

An elderly man dances with the memory of his young wife; a young man makes love to the woman his new wife will eventually become.However, as Margaret/Maggie prepares to take her own life and end her suffering, Billy is at her side. Another way in which Maggie and Margaret connected their characters was through the use of Brechtian-style gesture; both often pursed their lips to show displeasure. But it is also admirably clear-eyed about the ups and downs of a happy, childless marriage: the little betrayals, the thoughtless chatters of friends, the need to sometimes escape another person even if you love them, the lack of legacy, the terrible fear of turning into one of those couples "facing one another over a cooling cup of coffee with nothing left to say". Despite maintaining their individual personality traits, the relationship of the couple seemed to change in many ways as they grew older.