Photography: Danny Kaan

‘Well directed, elegant poignancy’ ★★★★

Violet (Cassie Bradley) and Leonard (Barney White) are spending the night in a Bath hotel during a 1940s bombing raid, He is about to leave for the Far East as a conscript and is terrified. Fast forward to the 1960s, when they meet in a park and we learn that they didn’t have a happy ending together (no spoilers). Then we join them in their eighties when she visits him in his bachelor Luton home. The title fits this poignant play perfectly.

The Day When We Were Young, which dates from 2011, runs for just 85 minutes and is, in its way as elegant as a Mozart concerto with its three “movements”, solo lines and tempo changes.

Both actors catch the awkwardness and hesitancy of these taut interchanges and they are very good at strained silence and at one nice moment near the beginning when they jump up and down in the bed in sheer joy. Director James Haddrell knows exactly how to develop the required chemistry in a simple but powerful two hander.

In the final scene they have convincingly aged 60 years. They move with well observed, careful slowness. Barney White’s Leonard painfully repeats himself a lot and clearly has the beginnings of dementia as well as declining physical health. As Violet, Cassie Bradley – who, unlike solitary Leonard has enjoyed a successful, happy life – struggles to open a packet of Jaffacakes and to text to her daughter on her Nokia phone. Even their voices are modulated differently. It is fine, moving acting.

Pollyanna Elston’s design delights too. The window shatters during the air raid and it’s achieved in a low-tech but effective way as are the two scene shifts, managed by the actors, which convert the bed into a park bench and then into Leonard’s sofa. And Aidan Good has done well with the sound – from escalating, whining explosions to the distant sound of children playing in the 1960s to the gentle patter of relentless rain, every inch the “pathetic fallacy”, in the final scene.

This is impressive, compelling theatre and well worth catching. It is good moreover to see Greenwich Theatre getting out and about. This is the first show to be staged anywhere other than at its home venue.

One Day When We Were Young by Nick Payne at Park Theatre

26 Feb – 22 Mar 2025

Produced by Greenwich Theatre

BOX OFFICE https://parktheatre.co.uk/event/one-day-when-we-were-young/

Cast

VIOLET | CASSIE BRADLEY

LEONARD | BARNEY WHITE

Creative Team

WRITER | NICK PAYNE

DIRECTOR | JAMES HADDRELL

DESIGNER | POLLYANNA ELSTON

LIGHTING DESIGNER | HENRY SLATER

SOUND DESIGNER | AIDAN GOOD

STAGE MANAGER | CORA PARKINSON

PRE-PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY | SIMON HILDREW

PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY | DANNY KAAN

VIDEOGRAPHY | ADAM NIGHTINGALE

GRAPHIC DESIGN | TOM MANN (GHOSTLIGHT

Review first published by LPTM: https://www.londonpubtheatres.com/review-the-day-when-we-were-young-by-nick-payne-at-park-theatre-26-feb-22-mar-2025