In the not so distant future, hundreds of lives perish and hundreds more are injured when a BU21 airplane is shot out of the sky over London.  Stuart Slade’s play builds a comprehensive picture of London’s response to such an attack through the interweaving monologues of six individuals.

The show opens with Bella (Bowen) sharing her memory of the day her office building shook. A jarring reflection on the immediacy news can be shared as she takes to google and asks “What the f*** is going on?” Twitter responds with an image of her own mother, dead.

Anna (Annabel Pilcher) is making a sandwich when a man, belted into his airplane seat, falls from the sky and perishes in her front garden. The man is the father of Sajan (Hira) who seeks to learn about the final moments of his dad’s life and subsequently falls for Anna in the process. The girlfriend and best friend of Ned (Rudkins-Stow) both died when the plane collided with the building they were having sex in. The cheating made it easier to mourn them, Ned surmises and the survivor’s therapy group, a great place to pick up women.

When a wave of scolding hot engine fuel bathed Paulina (Szarek), her Micky Mouse towel put out her legs on fire. Sunbathing in the park before work seemed such a good idea…And the final member of the ensemble is Fin (Findlay Macdonald), a simple white-van-man who becomes the face, the spokesperson, the hero of the catastrophe.

Entering the Old Joint Stock’s black box theatre, a simple wooden floor dictates the playing space of the piece. There is no set, and therefore the place you are entering is unknown. Ned makes our position in the audience very clear, questioning why we would even see a play about a terrorist attack. “Do you get off on the idea?” Though “get off” is not the words we would choose, the answer is yes, and this play is the perfect depiction of how an unknown’s suffering becomes our surreptitious entertainment.

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.

Slade’s characters are all recognisable stereotypes within British society, but they lack some of the intricacies and subtleness needed to develop our understandings of such characters beyond the two-dimensional writing on the page. It is for this reason that some of the performances feel apologetic. The saviour seems almost embarrassed to fulfil their role, which provides conflicting emotions, wanting to loathe and yet sympathise with the one who must fulfil the mould. The only non-white character therefore became a vehicle for every opinion, inaccuracy and motif of Islam, Islamophobia and the perception of non-white families in Britain. This made at times some uncomfortable watching, which though expected, was for the wrong reasons.

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.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Alanna Boden

BU21 plays until 11 February at the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham and you can get your tickets here.