Novelist Louis de Bernières’s sole foray into drama to date is this ‘Under Milk Wood’-inspired play for voices, written as a tribute to his erstwhile home suburb of Earlswood. It was performed for radio in 1999, and that would surely have been it, were it not for Bad Physics’s ingenious revival.
As with de Bernières‘s novels, ‘Sunday Morning…’ offers a quirky account of small town life, an Earlsfield where eccentric posh girls, diseased layabouts and worldly wise immigrants all exist in a state of benign clutter. Unlike his books, nothing really happens to the folk of Earlsfield, and this plot-free hour does tax the patience in its final third.
Yet I’d forgive a lot more for the sake of Amy Draper’s extraordinarily sensual production, in which the audience is invited to don blindfolds and experience the play through hearing and – yes – smell. A scent designer is not credited, but somebody deserves massive praise here.
From the delicious odour of breakfast that permeates the room as we enter, through precision-timed blasts of chip shop vinegar and the burnt diesel whiff of trains, this is an olfactory symphony – pungent, evocative and ungimmicky. It flatters a minor text and indubitably marks Bad Physics as a company to keep your eyes (and nose) peeled for.