Foreverland – Southwark Playhouse Borough, London

Writer: Emma Hemingford

Director: Frederick Wienand

If you could live forever, would you? That is the premise of Emma Hemingford’s thought-provoking new work Foreverland.

The piece centres upon married couple Alice  (Emma McDonald) and Jay (Christopher York), who, through their wealth and status, gain access to ‘The Programme’, a groundbreaking gene therapy that can, essentially, provide everlasting life. As the 90-minute work progresses, the couple’s newfound excitement is quickly replaced by anxiety and fear, struggling to find purpose and meaning in a world that moves without them. This is only further complicated by the arrival of daughter Annie, the child Alice has always wanted and who she quickly smothers with motherhood.

McDonald’s Alice is the standout performance of this piece. From the play’s first moments, we can see the fraught feelings Alice goes through as she makes this life-changing, and life-extending, choice, with the careful delivery gripping from start to finish. This is a stick portrayal and one that gives McDonald plenty of opportunities to express a full range, which is done with aplomb.

Conversely, York’s Jay is much more blasé regarding the treatment. A tech developer, Jay’s character is keen to approach everlasting life, despite the warnings about his own character. It is a shame that Jay’s character feels a little two-dimensional, as his flaws are not fully explored in the same way Alice’s are, but both York and McDonald support each other well as the gradually time-eroded marriage is revealed.

The pair is supported by Valerie Antwi (Dr Lane), as well as Una Byrne and Emily Butler, who play adult and child versions of Annie. Antwi’s Dr Lane is a unique character who just seems a tad eerie, perhaps a comment on the ethics of such treatments. Both performers who take on Annie are strong, too, but the script leaves out massive chunks of her life, which makes her eventual character shift a little too severe.

Peiyao Wang’s set design is aptly sparse. The space is largely bare, apart from a big surgical curtain at the back and some small pieces of furniture, and this bare staging works successfully with the traverse configuration to allow the audience to feel part of this relationship. This is an intimate situation that unfolds in front of us, with Wang’s staging enabling the spectator to observe each character’s movements closely, scrutinising each decision much like how Alice and Jay scrutinise their own choices.

Hemingford’s script provokes real thought into the ethics and impact of such treatment, which, as the play and its programme allude to, is not as far away as we might think. Largely, this script lands, spearheaded by the marvellous McDonald, yet the moments of humour appear at the wrong time, particularly during a fierce family confrontation towards the end, and this only takes you out of the moment. This, coupled with some awkward political jibes, feels unnecessary and detracts from the genuinely gripping domestic drama the piece is centred upon.

Despite some of the script’s deviations, this is nevertheless a moving and gentle production that forces you to evaluate your own views on immortality. It probably is something we have all thought about, and yet what this production forces you to do is consider the horror of such decisions, as well as the glee. It is a play that deserves such an emotionally charged conclusion and will leave you thinking long after the curtain falls.

Runs until 19 October 2024