Our Father

Synopsis

A young woman on the eve of her 30th birthday returns to her parents' home in the sweeping hills of the Peak District. But the house is full of memories, and down by the reservoir she hears a voice from a drowned village. In time, every secret must come to the surface...

Our Review:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 21 February 2012

Watching Charlotte Keatley’s latest play at its première last night, that famous opening line of Larkin’s poem kept on intruding its arresting rhythm. This is a time-travelling piece, for its succession of short scenes segues between midsummer 2012 and winter 1212 with excursions into the past lives of the three central present-day characters. It does all make a sort of sense by the end, but I’m not sure that the stage is its right vehicle; film might make the joints and jolts less obtrusive.

Anna is an unhappy young woman. Sheila, her mother, and Bill, her father, carry their own loads of misery in their house above the dam which protects the reservoir which Sheila’s father designed and on which Bill himself has worked. Then there’s park ranger Jack with his own burden of twisted ambitions. 800 years previously Catherine, a young shepherdess, had chosen to become an anchoress beside the church now subsumed by the drought-battered reservoi...

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