Deluge

This was definitely one of the weirder plays we have seen at the Hampstead downstairs theatre. Difficult to describe the setting as its never made all that clear. Its in a dystopian future in rural  the Ireland. Due to climate change (one assumes) its almost permanently raining. (Remember a former Labour environmental spokesman recommending we seek out garden plants that suit a Mediterranean climate? Like most Labour predictions, a million miles from the result and if you followed their advice you would have a very dead lot of plants)

Anyway, we flit back and forth between a young woman being interrogated and her earlier existence on a sodden cattle farm with her husband. As the play develops we see that her husband commits suicide to avoid his debts allowing his wife to collect the insurance, except the insurance won't pay out that early. So she hides his death by burying him under a tree on the farm. And that's pretty  much what the play is a about - the unfolding of this grim tale.

Not many laughs, apart from before the start where my impatient companion decided to overtake a couple of dithering OAPs on the front row by putting one foot on the stage. Unfortunately the he didn't spot that the glassy surface of the stage was in fact a tank of water. Splash. A clever device in the set to get the feel of the constant rain - all the actors were in Wellington boots throughout.