When You Cure Me

Synopsis

Rachel and Peter have been going out for six months. Then Rachel gets ill, and doesn't want the attentions of her mother or friends, just Peter. Peter doesn't know what he wants, but he thinks he can make Rachel better.

Our Review:

22 November 2005

First love is hard at the best of times, all those teenage hormones bouncing around. But poor Peter is walking a tightrope, the uneasy path between boyfriend and carer since his girlfriend, Rachel, was attacked.

In Jack Thorne’s play we, like Rachel, are confined to her bedroom. The psychological effect of the assault has manifested as an inability to use her legs, so she remains in bed throughout.

Penelope Challen’s naturalistic set, with posters on the walls and the soft pastel colours of a young girl’s room remind us of the conflict between Rachel’s adolescence and youth, and the unnaturalness of her attack; she may look like a woman but she still retains the trappings and innocence of girlhood. All Rachel’s confused emotions are heavily laid at Peter’s door, a sensitive boy who cares almost too much and is trying to negotiate his new role and the dangerous ground between Rachel and her Mother.

This is a tender play about the fragility of relationships and is p...

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Latest User Review

80.177.231.164) - 8 December 2005:

A quite remarkable play - thoughtful, deatiled, moving account of the relationship of two teenagers in the wake of the girl's rape. Wonderful acting. Enthralling. ...

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