To mark the second anniversary of some of the worst flooding ever to hit Britain, Hull Truck has commissioned a new work from Rupert Creed, a pioneer of aural-history documentary dramas and a fine director and writer in the genre. Creed has crafted the verbatim accounts offered by hundreds of people throughout Hull (including a glorious riff from a callous youth glorying in the sight of contaminated waves cresting front steps in the wake of his save-it-at-all-costs Renault Twingo) - into the story of two couples struggling to get through the disaster. Intersecting this narrative is an account of the terrible death of 28-year-old Michael Barnett, who, trying to clear a drain on a suburban estate, became trapped and, four hours later, surrounded by emergency services, died.
In spite of some fine moments, notably the inquest into Michael's death, the production never quite takes off. In narrowing the focus on to two couples, the scope of the drama is lost and the flood becomes a pretext for the bursting dams of marital tensions. Gareth Tudor Price's stale direction and Graham Kirk's unimaginative scaffolding set suggest that Hull Truck's creative team is still bobbing below the level set by its fantastic new space.
