One Minute - Sheffield First

Synopsis

A child goes missing, vanishes into thin air. The witnesses statements are inconclusive and the police struggle without a clear case or understanding of a criminal motive. Like ripples from a stone in calm water, five characters, each with a different degree of separation from this tragic event, go about their lives trying to make sense of the unfathomable. One Minute asks how we console the inconsolable. Two men and three women are in thrall to the brutality and generosity of London; each has a broken dream; each contributes to the heartbreak of others.

Our Review:

9 February 2004

Great reckonings in small rooms is what the Bush excel at and One Minute, in its unsensational and imperfect way, is precisely that.

The subject may be an all-too-familiar one – a detective story based around a young child who has gone missing. But author Simon Stephens with Actors Touring Company's director, Gordon Anderson have found fresh mileage on the periphery, in the repercussions of those involved: the two policemen, the mother, a barmaid, a witness, and last but by no means least, the city in which these events take place - London itself. The result is one of the most heart-warming plays apt to come your way this, or any year, for that matter.

Stephens' past plays (Bluebird, Herons and the darkly comic Christmas which comprised the first half of this mini-Stephens season at the Bush in January) have all been marked by wry humour and an ability to find beauty in the unlikeliest of urban situations. Here, his heightened sense...

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