First got here the euphoria of VE Day in May 1945. People rejoiced after six lengthy years of struggle got here to an finish. The first summer season of peacetime ambled gently into view. But struggle was nonetheless raging within the Far East. Come August an atomic bomb will land in Hiroshima and provoke Japan’s unconditional give up. The aftershock could be equally felt at Farm Hall within the Cambridgeshire countryside. Six of Germany’s prime nuclear scientists have been detained on the mansion following their seize by allied forces.
Known collectively as Hitler’s ‘Uranium Club’ they regularly alter to their environment. They half-heartedly rehearse for their very own manufacturing of Blythe Spirit. Redacted newspapers and a rapidly repaired piano are the one different sources of amusement. The group have their very own peculiar cliques however is incessantly break up in response to age and standing. Hahn (Forbes Masson) is the linchpin who found nuclear fission, a course of that made the atomic bomb doable. Von Laue (David Yelland) is the elder statesman who gained the Nobel Prize for Physics. Diebner (Julius D’Silva) was a number one member of the Nazi Party; whereas Heizenberg (Alan Cox) is one other Nobel Prize winner and mentor to Bagge (Archie Backhouse). Weizsacker (Daniel Boyd), a youthful member of the group comes from a well-connected, influential household.
Farm Hall has a pure shine as a result of it’s based mostly on a real story, and there’s a self-contained drama throughout the story itself. When information of the assault on Hiroshima breaks, an intense interval of self- evaluation and contemplation begins. Far from being Hitler’s henchmen, they have been excellent scientists charged with harnessing the facility of uranium. Do they really feel guilt on the destruction they’ve helped create, or frustration that another person has completed the job they began? The consolation of confinement leaves them nowhere to cover; they haven’t any selection however to face the penalties of an all too actual devastation. 
Aside from being fantastically acted and brilliantly written, Farm Hall poses some uncomfortable questions on science, and the way a lot could be justified within the title of progress. All innovations can be used for good or evil; simply in the identical means that uranium can be utilized as each a supply of vitality and destruction. Debutant playwright Katherine Moar has original an clever and engrossing narrative. The solely downer is using scientific jargon (‘C02 globules’ anybody?). Which might make it difficult for these of us who hid in the back of the science lab in school?
Review by Brian Penn
Seat: D11 | Price of Ticket: £35/£31 concessions