BU21 (NHB Modern Plays)

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The first character comes on stage from the audience, as if demonstrating that she is one of us: a girl on crutches, called Izzy, her mum died in the crash. She tells us that when you watch such atrocities on tv, “you can’t conceive this happening to you, but then it does…” How would you cope? This becomes the main question of the performance.

The real star of this show is Stuart Slade's script. It's not just the pace that runs relentlessly across the 90 minutes all-through, but his ear for how people speak, their lexicons and their rhythms. An Alan Bennett for the Millennial Generation is a big label to put on a young playwright, but Slade is building a corpus of work to justify it... superb work' BroadwayWorld.com Stuart Slade shows how the tragedy becomes an opportunity for most of the six. Graham makes a great deal of money from a ghost-written book about himself. Alex’s promotion prospects improve as a result of the explosion killing a number of bankers. He also manages to use the therapy group to find a partner from an influential family. Clive gets into a relationship with the woman who watched his father die. Ana (Roxana Lupu) describes sunbathing on Eel Brook Common when the explosion covered her in burning aviation fuel.If you’re auditioning for drama school, you need to come up with a pretty great contemporary monologue choice that shows you know a bit of contemporary drama and not just the stuff you did at school.

Absolutely. I’m over the moon to see this piece given further life. I always felt it was a play that was extremely relevant and would become no less relevant over time. It’s fantastic for Kuleshov [Theatre] to be starting 2017 in the West End. We are a company that was born in the latter part of 2014 to stage Stuart’s first full-length play, Cans. So in a relatively short time we’ve gone from playing above pubs to playing in Trafalgar Square. Powerful is just one of the many words that I could use to describe BU21. Six very individual stories connect around one event and the PTSD group they attend. As I’ve said above, these are all very different people and it’s really great how the writing makes them all not just believable as characters but as people affected by the disaster that befell the country. The main effect of the writing is to make the audience question how they would react to an event like this? Having been in the RAF based in London during the days when the IRA were at their most active I always assumed I would react with total professionalism to a terrorist outrage but really nobody knows how it will affect them and that is something the play really brings to life, particularly in the character of Graham who does everything wrong yet somehow does something right in his initial response. Mass trauma forever changes the mental health of those touched by it. Terrorism seeks to spread fear, to torture wounded souls into anger and hate. It statistically is not feasible that everyone touched by 9/11 or 7/7 will heal and Matt Bond’s direction does not shy away from this reality. The dark humour provides some much-needed relief in this intense two-part depiction, and Bond handles some of the nuances with great delicacy ensuring all of those whom find it entertaining, also understand the truth in the darkness. The play is entertaining enough. The words characters use catches the naturalistic language we are used to. But there are things about it that will bother us. In a series of monologues and a couple of short dialogues, loosely linked by a survivors' therapy group, these young people tell the audience about the way the explosion affected their lives.

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Filled with harrowing moments, dark laughter and charismatic performers, this is a bold directorial debut by Matt Bond. BU21 holds an unapologetic mirror to the face of today’s society. It highlights the terrifying acceptance of tragic events and humbles the viewer to the reality of the experiences of those involuntarily involved. It is a scarce reminder that the trauma continues long after the media has moved on to its next new shiny event. From left to right: Ana (Roxana Lupu, out of focus in left foreground); Alex (Alex Forsyth); Clive (Clive Keene); Graham (Graham O’Mara, illuminated); Thalissa (Thalissa Teixeira); and Floss (Florence Roberts). Photo courtesy of David Monteith-Hodge. BU21: Theatre503, Clive Kene, Graham O’Mara and Florence Roberts. Image courtesy of David Monteith-Hodge

I’m not watching a moralistic drama documentary but an immersive piece of theatre with characters I care about played by a refreshing, young, energetic cast, sculptured by an equally energetic and talented new director, Matt Bond. Sadly, the choice to stay downstairs for another drink was too tempting for some audience members, which was a great pity because act two is where the cleverness of Slade makes his a voice well worth listening to. Matt Bond directs with a fine brush and a pallet full of passion – he has drilled his company into making the most of what Slade has given him to work with and uses the intimate acting space to full dramatic effect. When the body lands in Floss’s garden, the thought that runs through her head is a line from the song "It’s Raining Men". Alex tells us that he saw the survivors' group as a good place to pull vulnerable women. Graham, the fraudulent celebrity hero makes a racist speech to the group.Graham (Graham O’Mara), a building firm driver who rushed to the scene, becomes a media celebrity after making an impassioned speech about the spirit of Londoners. He also falsely claims he saved a number of people. What a daring feat of writing this is… hauntingly credible, shudderingly so… captures the internal conflict of global terror: the sense that it was somehow deserved, the pull to be part of something, the impulse to laugh and to cry' WhatsOnStage