Writer: Malory Blackman
Adapter: Winsome Pinnock
Director: Tristan Flynn-Aiduenu
Imagine the scenario: you contract a virus. Complications means this weakens your heart. Your only chance for long term survival is a transplant, and there’s a national shortage of healthy organs. Would you accept the heart of a pig instead? What if you were only 13 years old?
That’s the choice facing Cameron (Immanuel Yeboah) in Pig Heart Boy. Based on the 1997 novel by Malory Blackman, this 90-minute one act play doesn’t beat around the bush when asking the big questions. Is it safe? Is it ethical? Is it ok to breed a genetically engineered animal purely to kill it and save a human life? How do you make that choice? How do you let your teenager make that choice for himself?
All Cameron really wants is to be able to do what his friends do, especially to play Daredevil Dive, submersing himself in a swimming pool and holding his breath for longer than Rashid (Akil Young). It’s such a small thing, but it’s all encompassing for Cameron, and Yeboah makes it seem like the most important thing in the world, while also effortless demonstrating the wider possibility the game represents, of breeching the metaphorical womb and gaining a chance at living a full life. Perhaps if he can hold his breath long enough, it’ll all be ok. But for all that the premise could be doom and gloom, this heartfelt show is also fantastically funny. Yeboah never leaves stage, and barely stops talking, but he hardly seems to break a sweat as he guides the audience through over dramatic reactions to his (faked) untimely death, swimming competitions in sparkly swimwear, meeting his sparkly porcine donor, undergoing his operation and all the backlash that follows. He is a tour du force throughout, talking directly to the audience as the rest of the actors double, triple, even quadruple cast around him. And what a cast they are! Equally believable as naïve teenagers and anxious adults. Special recognition must go to Tré Medley as Dr Bryce, an American pioneer hounded by the press and animal rights protestors, as well as Young and Christine During who play Cameron’s parents Mike and Cathy, presenting a divided force and centring a lot of the ethical questions the play raises.
Of course, the most unusual and eye catching character is the set and lighting. A twenty-foot scaffold takes up the backwall, festooned with 90s TV screens and with a central, steering wheel sized speaker, out of which run ropes of LEDs that pulse and change based on Cameron’s emotions and actions. This places the show inside a symbolic heart, beating away throughout, casting washes of blood red and swimming pool blue across the scenes. Paul Wills (Design), Andrew Exeter (Lighting Design) and Xana (Sound Designer and Composer) have done a remarkable job here, one which simply must be seen to be fully appreciated. They have created a sensory experience that perfectly enhances the acting and movement.
Literally the only thing missing from the entire show is a scar. Cameron talks multiple times about the violence of the operation, the cutting of skin and cracking of breastbones, being left “looking like Frankenstein”. Yet when we see him finally have a go at Daredevil Dive, there’s nothing to indicate the operation. Although perhaps that is the point – the transplant has, hopefully, made him just like everyone else.
Pig Heart Boy is the kind of family theatre you don’t often see; tech celebratory, vivacious, sharp of wit and full of heart, both human and swine. Ostensibly aimed at – and incredibly important for – teenagers and pre-teens, the audience here are largely adults, many of whom left the show questioning what their own choice would be. While things have been simplified and made colourful for the younger audience, it does not pull punches in debating the reality, with scenes of protest and disgust shown alongside the celebration of scientific possibility. In 1997, when Blackman wrote the novel for Pig Heart Boy, xenotransplantation, moving organs from animals to humans, was science fiction. As of 2022, it became science fact. Although still very much a last resort and experimental treatment, two pig-to-human heart transplants have now taken place, and although neither recipient lived more than a couple of months, it’s impossible not to feel a mixture of hope and concern about what that could mean for future transplants. With 300 people currently waiting for one in the UK, at least 40 of them children, Pig Heart Boy is an excellent prompt to start thinking and learning about the medical choices that could very well affect any of us.
Runs until 15 March 2025
