I’d neither read the original book of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, nor seen the film, so had no expectations of what might be in this play, co-produced by the Royal and Derngate, Rose Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and Malvern Theatres. Suzanne Heathcote’s excellent stage adaptation is a complicated, multi-layered story that develops on a number of timescales and in many different locations, and this production tells its tale with admirable clarity.

This England of the 1980s and 90s is a country with a subset of non-people, cloned with the sole purpose to provide organs so that the “real” inhabitants can survive disease, catastrophe and the aging process. These subhumans are separated from the earliest age, brought up and educated separately, designed to go straight from school to “the cottages”, where, rather like the characters in Pulp’s Common People, they “dance and drink and screw because there’s nothing else to do”.

They then become carers for those starting their donating “careers”; and once they get called up they spend their lives in and out of hospital, having organs removed with no regard for their own needs. Occasionally they don’t survive the first harvesting, and it’s pretty much accepted that no one gets past their fourth donation-transaction. They don’t then die, they complete. There’s no sympathy for this subset of people, and in fact they’re pretty much despised by the public. It’s a horrendously savage and bitter take on the human condition, and I found the story profoundly unsettling, unpleasant, and above all, sad.

One of the most quotable quotes I ever heard was the playwright Edward Bond, in his original author’s note accompanying his play Saved: “Clutching at straws is the only realistic thing to do.” And it’s true; we do spend our lives clutching at straws, whether it’s the hope that “everything will be alright in the end”, or that the awful job will get better eventually, or that if we say our prayers we’ll go to heaven. Ishiguro’s characters, given an unusually artistic and rewarding education at the private Hailsham School, are led to believe that if they excel at art, their works will be displayed in a gallery; others can see into their souls and if it’s clear that they are in love, they may be granted a deferral from their eventually unavoidable purpose in life. Clutching at straws, indeed.

The story concentrates on Kathy H (none of the clones have surnames, just identifying letters) who takes to the role of carer with an enthusiasm and commitment that the others simply lack. The play starts with her taking her latest donor through his procedures, but when he finds out that she went to Hailsham he is curious to know more about what it was like. Thus the narrative takes us back to her schooldays, the early friendships and rivalries, and the relationships with the guardians. It then progresses through her time at the cottage, and into being a carer for several years. But there’s never any doubt as to her eventual fate, and the play nicely ends where it starts with the same actor who was her donor in the first scene now being her carer in the last.

There’s much to admire in this production. Tom Piper’s set, ostensibly located in a hospital, with five double doors in a semi-circle, also doubles up beautifully as the school and other locations; combined with Joshua Carr’s lighting and Carolyn Downing’s sound, it also conveys beautifully the wide expanse of beach that provides a brief moment of respite for Kathy, Ruth and Tommy.

There are also some fantastic performances from the busy cast, many of whom take on several roles. Nell Barlow is superb throughout as Kathy H, rarely off stage, an upbeat characterisation of someone who sees the best in others and always tries to accentuate the positive, even when it causes her own personal pain and grief. There are also brilliant performances by Angus Imrie as Tommy D, the sporty Hailsham kid who had anger management issues and always carries a torch for Kathy, and Matilda Baines as Ruth C, Kathy’s childhood best friend who barely suppresses a cruel and manipulative streak. There’s a moment when the adult Kathy and Tommy locate Hailsham head guardian Miss Emily, who explains some of the background that they could never understand as children. Susan Aderin gives an agonisingly heart-wrenching performance as Miss Emily in this most thrilling scene of the play. But the entire cast give an excellent performance throughout.

There is one directorial affectation, however, that drove me to distraction. Almost every scene ends with a character saying the first line of the next scene. That may not sound like much of a problem, but in practice it exasperated me – an unnecessary, and regularly predictable gimmick. I couldn’t see the point of it at the time, and I still can’t. In fact, it set my back up so much that I found it hard to warm to the production until after the interval, when the device is used less frequently. That aside, it’s a thought-provoking, powerful play that poses many questions about the purpose of life and our relationships with each other. Having started life at the Rose Theatre Kingston, it is just about to end its run at the Royal and Derngate Northampton, but its tour continues to Malvern and the Bristol Old Vic, finishing at the Chichester Festival Theatre at the end of November.

Production photos by Hugo Glendenning

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!