A Number

Synopsis

A father is confronted by his adult son. And then by another, identical to the first. But are the pair twins, or the outcome of an extraordinary scientific experiment? Which is the real child, and which is merely one of 'a number', cloned from the original? And how many more might be out there? This play contains strong language.

Our Review:

5 October 2010

Samuel West programmed this production of Caryl Churchill’s taut, 50-minute two-hander about human cloning in 2006 to run for three weeks as part of his second season then in charge of Sheffield Crucible. He, his father Timothy West and director Jonathan Munby have been wanting to do it again ever since, dependent on the right venue. And they’ve found that in the Menier Chocolate Factory which, for the first time, has been configured in-the-round, replicating the dimensions of the Crucible.

The seating arrangement - as well as the casting of a real-life father and son and other directorial decisions - makes this feel like an entirely different, and much more intimate, piece than the play’s world premiere production, which starred Daniel Craig (in his last London stage appearance before international fame as James Bond) and Michael Gambon, directed by Stephen Daldry at the Royal Court in 2002. Though similarly slick and thought-provoking, the enduring ideas left with...

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Latest User Review

Gareth James - 3 October 2010:

I'm finding it hard to believe it's only 8 years since I saw the original production of Caryl Churchill's play about cloning at the Royal Court. I remember the starry casting of Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig and the West End transfer being scuppered by their refusal to move with it. I remember finding it intriguing, but confusing and ultimately an unsatisfying 50 minutes. So why did I go and see it again? Well, because it's at a lovely intimate theatre - the Menier Chocolate Factory (though on Friday suffering from distracting extraneous noise of a band rehearsing somewhere) - and father and son Timothy West and Sam West play the father and sonS. It must have been ahead of its time in 2002 because the debate about cloning in the subsequent 8 years make it now seem more timely. I'm not sure the father and son casting actually added anything and I still found it intriguing, though a little less confusing, but just as unsatisfying....

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