Richard Cameron's latest play celebrates the healing power of storytelling. It is set in a mental hospital that is both a haven and a prison for failed teacher Geoff, who has lost his wife and son, and for the three teenagers he has taken under his wing. Mick has had a breakdown, having lost her family and baby; Joya self-harms; and Steve threw himself off a bridge. This quartet start to discover themselves the more they lose themselves in Geoff's story of an impossible journey.
Drawing on the true story of a man and his horse - who hauled a barge with its cargo of explosives 168 miles through the canal network to Liverpool during the second world war - and his father's near-death experience in the war, Cameron's play suggests that we all need a purpose in life and that we can make our own happy endings. It is wise and tender, but sometimes feels contrived.
The elegiac quality - Elgar, Chekhovian birch trees, real rain - is laid on a tad thick, but the design is beautiful and there are fine performances. The scenario may be hard to believe, but not the drift of a drama that reminds us that only by making sense of the past can we make sense of the present.
