Playwright Snoo Wilson had a wilder imagination than most of his more highly feted contemporaries put together. It often made theatres wary, or at a loss, when faced with plays that set off along one track and then suddenly spiral off somewhere else entirely, invoking the surreal in a manner that would have delighted both Lewis Carroll and Salvador Dalí. Wilson, who died two years ago aged 64, was a playwright who knew the world and human beings are full of mysteries and complications.
The codebreaker and mathematician Alan Turing, whose story has become widely known through the Benedict Cumberbatch movie The Imitation Game, was a highly complicated individual, and Wilson captures some of the complexity of a man who often found inanimate objects and machines easier than human beings. It begins in naturalistic mode, with Churchill being informed of Turing’s suicide (a result of being prosecuted for gross indecency), and then shifts gear to offer Turing’s story from a unique perspective: that of Turing’s teddy bear, played with a sweet concern by Bryan Pilkington in an outsize furry suit.
The suggestion that Turing may have had a deeper relationship with his teddy bear than with any human being becomes less absurd than it might appear in a show that seems to be trying to mirror the mathematician’s brilliant mind in the way it jumps around and makes connections, including with the poisoned apple in Snow White.
It’s a big ask for any director and would probably need the well-resourced vision of a Rupert Goold to really make it fly. But Matthew Parker and his cast give it their all in a rough and ready production that displays considerably more dash than cash but boasts a fine central performance by Ian Hallard, who captures both Turing’s intellectual arrogance and emotional puzzlement.
- At Above the Arts until 21 November. Box office: 020-7836 8463.
