As part of her ongoing post-show Q&A series, on Friday 25 May 2018, Mates co-founder Terri Paddock returns to Cirencester’s Barn Theatre to quiz the team behind a major new revival of Simon Stephens’ 2002 play One Minute. Got any questions?
I’m delighted to return to the Barn Theatre after the success of its inaugural production, family musical The Secret Garden – including a fantastic Q&A with the company – for their new show, a major new take on Simon Stephens’ play One Minute.
A child goes missing, vanishes into thin air, leaving a tender, fragmentary play about the inarticulacy of grief.
One Minute is a disquieting portrait of lives that are united in the single moment it takes for a child to disappear. The play follows several connected characters through their struggles with Daisy Schults’ disappearance: the two policemen investigating the disappearance; Daisy’s mother Anne; and Marie Louise, a woman who believes she glimpsed Daisy after she had been separated from her mother.
Robert is new to the police force, and his enthusiasm for the case is keener than that of his cynical colleague Gary. Mary Louise begins a strange friendship with a woman who knows Gary from the café where she works. Anne’s life has stopped: she wants to know when ‘missing’ becomes ‘presumed dead’.
In this new production, artistic director Iwan Lewis, marking his directorial debut, also brings Stephens’ story up to date setting it today, when social media would also play a big party in the tragedy and its impact on the characters.
The five-strong One Minute cast features Bad Education, Sherlock and Misfits television star Jack Bence, alongside Rebecca Crankshaw, Sarah Hanly, Gary Summers and Sophie May Wake.
For the post-show Q&A after the 7.30pm performance on Friday 25 May 2018, I’ll be joined by director Iwan Lewis and the One Minute company.
