Post by Steve on Sept 19, 2024 21:57:45 GMT
Saw this tonight in preview, and it's a smart play about vaccines, and who to believe about vaccines.
It's more informative and thought-provoking than it is an entertainment, though it is endlessly fascinating.
Some spoilers follow. . .
It purports to be a "verbatim" play, but one of the "interviewees" is from the late 1700s, namely Edward Jenner, "the inventor of the first vaccine," whose work eradicated smallpox, over time.
The lead character is Rob, the author of the play, Rob Drummond, but he isn't on stage (as he was in "The Majority" at the Dorfman), but is instead played by the actor, Gavi Singh Chera.
"Rob" tells us this is a verbatim play, nonetheless, and that he has constructed Jenner's words (Jenner is played wonderfully, in period clothes, by Richard Cant, as pragmatic, smug and amoral) from contemporaneous accounts, and he reenacts the process of how he signed up two other people to participate, Mary and Robert, whose lives have been impacted by the vaccine debate: Vivienne Acheampong's Mary, who fell under the sway of the now discredited Andrew Wakefield, who said the MMR vaccine caused autism, and Brian Vernel's Robert, whose Mum got blood clots after taking the Covid vaccine.
Nonetheless, the fact that Jenner comments on the play we are watching and wants to chat with the others suggests the "verbatim" nature of the play is loosely defined lol.
Anyhow, the three give testimonies (all three are as much "authors" of the play and the information we hear, as "Rob," it would appear), so does Rob, and we learn a LOT about both vaccines, AND the sources of information that we rely on to inform ourselves.
It's a very clever, fascinating, topical and informative 80 minutes, without an interval ("Rob" conceitedly commends himself on not including one lol), and I'd give it 3 and a half stars.
I might have given it even more if Richard Cant's devilish Jenner (he deliberately gave kids viruses) or Brian Vernel's angry and threatening anti-vaxxer had simply snatched the mike away from the all-too-reasonable Rob and stirred up a bit more heat.
It's more informative and thought-provoking than it is an entertainment, though it is endlessly fascinating.
Some spoilers follow. . .
It purports to be a "verbatim" play, but one of the "interviewees" is from the late 1700s, namely Edward Jenner, "the inventor of the first vaccine," whose work eradicated smallpox, over time.
The lead character is Rob, the author of the play, Rob Drummond, but he isn't on stage (as he was in "The Majority" at the Dorfman), but is instead played by the actor, Gavi Singh Chera.
"Rob" tells us this is a verbatim play, nonetheless, and that he has constructed Jenner's words (Jenner is played wonderfully, in period clothes, by Richard Cant, as pragmatic, smug and amoral) from contemporaneous accounts, and he reenacts the process of how he signed up two other people to participate, Mary and Robert, whose lives have been impacted by the vaccine debate: Vivienne Acheampong's Mary, who fell under the sway of the now discredited Andrew Wakefield, who said the MMR vaccine caused autism, and Brian Vernel's Robert, whose Mum got blood clots after taking the Covid vaccine.
Nonetheless, the fact that Jenner comments on the play we are watching and wants to chat with the others suggests the "verbatim" nature of the play is loosely defined lol.
Anyhow, the three give testimonies (all three are as much "authors" of the play and the information we hear, as "Rob," it would appear), so does Rob, and we learn a LOT about both vaccines, AND the sources of information that we rely on to inform ourselves.
It's a very clever, fascinating, topical and informative 80 minutes, without an interval ("Rob" conceitedly commends himself on not including one lol), and I'd give it 3 and a half stars.
I might have given it even more if Richard Cant's devilish Jenner (he deliberately gave kids viruses) or Brian Vernel's angry and threatening anti-vaxxer had simply snatched the mike away from the all-too-reasonable Rob and stirred up a bit more heat.
