One has to be in the mood for it, but sometimes the middle of the night is the best time for a deep, meaningful conversation. So it proves to be for Nadia Blye (Dina Fahmy), an American academic on the staff of Yale University, and Oliver Lucas (Paul James), a GP based in Shropshire. Quite how they met in the first place was through Oliver’s son Philip (Pascal Orzabal), who emigrated to America, where he pursued a career and, to cut a long story short, fell in love with Nadia. It’s not exactly unheard of for a son to dislike his dad, but if Philip hates his dad as much as he says he does and hasn’t spoken to him in years, why has he bothered making the trip over to see him now?
The play premiered in 2006 on Broadway, and watching the show in London twenty years later, Nadia’s wish to somehow compartmentalise her private life from her public persona seems more fantastical than ever in today’s world of social media influencers. The general desire for fame and fortune in society is undimmed, even if it expresses itself in different ways than before. The play leans into Anglo-American stereotypes, with Oliver wiping the floor in his overnight conversation with Nadia. It’s a subtle play, and so it’s a subtle dialogue. Nadia doesn’t exactly holler, “USA! USA! USA!” when arguing her case for Western intervention with regards to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In turn, Oliver doesn’t exactly roar back, “Bombing innocent civilians just going about their business? Really?!” It’s so subtle, indeed, that the term ‘weapons of mass destruction’ doesn’t, as far as I recall, even appear in the dialogue.
Perhaps the play wanted to demonstrate the impossibility of totally separating the ‘personal’ from the ‘professional’, but it was interesting to note at the performance I attended, I joined the majority of the audience in applauding the end of a long and engaging scene in the second half that ended with a profound and poignant conclusion, only for us to discover there was still more to come. What was the closing scene brought some completeness to Nadia’s story, but if the play had ended at the earlier round of applause, I wouldn’t be saying that the evening was twenty minutes too long.
The other on-stage characters then (thanks largely to Oliver’s open marriage, itself now dissolved, there were plenty of off-stage ones), bookended proceedings. Separately, Dennis Dutton (Ben Connaughton) and Terri Scholes (Isabella Cottrell Kirby), both Yale students, turn in essay assignments (to use American terminology) to Nadia, who is invariably of the opinion they have misunderstood the assignment. The play’s title, eventually mentioned in the dialogue, is apparently derived from ‘combat medicine’ in which the hour immediately after a member of military personnel has sustained an injury at war is the most critical. It’s rather a pity that the play felt longer than it was, and I can therefore only assume that the injured parties in this ‘conflict’ are beyond help.
Still, it’s something of an indictment on the modern world that the show retains substantial resonance, even if the analyses of the three main characters of one another as well as themselves left me wondering if this was more of a therapy session than an incisive examination of socio-political events.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Conflicted war reporter turned Yale academic, Nadia, and her boyfriend Philip are visiting Oliver, his reclusive father in the Shropshire hills. Talk turns to politics, solitude, love. Their views are very different. Over a fraught 24 hours the three taunt and test each other. Passions and wits clash as they wrestle with reconciling existence in a fractured world while enjoying a rich personal life. As the dawn breaks, the night’s revelations lead each of them to painful self-examination.
CAST
Nadia Blye – Dina Fahmy
Dennis Dutton – Ben Connaughton
Oliver Lucas – Paul James
Philip Lucas – Pascal Orzabal
Terri Scholes – Isabella Cottrell Kirby
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director – Paul Collins
Lighting Designer – Andrew Whadcoat
Sound Designer – Jane Arnold-Forster
Costume Designer – Jenny Webb
Set Designer – Stephen Souchon
Stage Manager – Jenny Webb
Deputy Stage Manager – Stephen Hyndman
Assistant Stage Manager – Grace Chapman
THE VERTICAL HOUR
By David Hare
The Questors Theatre
13 to 21 February 2026
