Photo: Douglas Armoir
Composers: Joel Goodman and Jan Osborne
Bool: Joan Greening
Director: Jane Miles
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Anyone fortunate enough to be in possession of a £50 note could look at the proud face that adorns it, that of Alan Turing, and ponder over the many ironies of an extraordinary life that journeyed from hero to zero and then, posthumously, back to hero. This 80-minute show delivers exactly what the title promises and charts the rise and fall of the man who contributed massively to his country’s victory in World War II and, along the way, invented the computer.
Played by Joe Bishop, Turing is seen as a man whose intellectual capacity and obsession with mathematics sets him apart from all those around him. He regards himself as occupying a separate parallel universe and, in the unenlightened era of the 1930s-50s, he is a homosexual in a world of heterosexuals. The death of a boyhood friend, Christopher Morcom, possibly an intellectual equal, scars him and the savage injustices inflicted on him in later years leave him mortally wounded. Bishop’s sensitive portrayal lays bare his deep loneliness.
Zara Cooke plays all other significant characters in Turing’s life: his mother, his tutors, an aggressive police officer included. Most movingly, she becomes Joan Clarke, the woman alongside whom he graduates from Cambridge and with whom he reunites for wartime codebreaking work at Bletchley Park. Very briefly, they become engaged to be married.
In essence, Turing is as much of an enigma as the German code that he strives to crack and Joan Greening’s book can only skim over the surface of his life and achievements. Instead, the focus is placed firmly on Turing’s lifelong emotional turmoil and the music, composed by Joel Goodman and Jan Osborne, heightens the impact of this approach. Director Jane Miles’ simple but intense production further emphasises this central focus.
Turing died in 1954, aged only 41, and his subsequent elevation to iconic status reflects important changes in society, but it can hardly be recompense for the degradation that he suffered at the hands of the country which he served with such brilliance. A £50 note would be enough to buy a pair of tickets for this revealing little show, with change to spare. It would be money well spent.
Performance date: 9 January 2024
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