Fatherland review: A chronicle of intimacy and absence, guilt and affection

Memory lane: a ladder emerges from the floor as a fireman recalls a blaze he tackled
Tristram Kenton
Henry Hitchings4 June 2018

Fatherland is billed as a “collage of words, music and movement”, and as the title implies it’s about two things — paternity and place.

It’s a chronicle of intimacy and absence, guilt and affection, violence and death. But there are also musings on the ideas of home, tribalism and what one character is mocked for calling the “physical geography” of a post-industrial England too easily obliterated by a fascination with the modish and the metropolitan.

This 90-minute show, which premiered at last year’s Manchester International Festival, is the brainchild of playwright Simon Stephens, Karl Hyde of Underworld and Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham (who directs). They all appear as characters, with Declan Bennett particularly vivid as Graham, and splice together fragments of interviews conducted in their home towns — Stockport, Kidderminster and Corby, respectively.

They speak to only 12 men — a small sample that yields a lot of familiar observations. One interviewee, Craig Stein’s Luke, quizzes the trio about their motives. Deconstructing their process requires them to probe their own experiences but Luke gets too near the knuckle when he asks, “Do you think this will be in any way interesting to anyone apart from you?”

There are visually arresting sections, notably when a ladder emerges from the floor during a fireman’s recollection of a deadly blaze. Yet the best moments come when the songs highlight either the vulnerability of the solo male voice or the sheer voltage that’s possible when a throng of those voices combine.

Until June 23

Latest theatre reviews

1/50

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in