Manchester Theatre News & Reviews

REVIEW - Breaking The Code is a poignant production we can all learn from.

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On Wednesday, we were invited to Home, Manchester to see Breaking The Code. Read what our reviewer Abigail Holden had to say about this important play ...

Breaking the Code has landed at HOME in Manchester, with Alan Turing’s tale coming back to the place where he came after the events and success of World War 2, to unfortunately lose his life here. The tragic tale of his persecution and my love of the film The Imitation Game made me very excited to see his story brought to the stage. From the huge impact his work had on the rest of the world in computer science, to the way that he was persecuted for his sexuality, he is an important figure that, I believe, everyone should know about.

The story told is that of Alan Turing’s life, through his work at Bletchley Park during the second world war, where he saved millions of lives for his work on cracking the enigma code, in his creation of a machine that would go on to be the forerunner of the modern computers we have today. His mathematical genius was at the forefront of his time at Bletchley Park, which goes over my head, but was explained in a way that I was more mesmerised than confused. It also covers his personal life, where in a world where homosexuality was illegal, Turing hid his true self with his colleagues, so as to not be persecuted.

After the war was over, Turing was found to be gay and prosecuted. In order to avoid a prison sentence, where he could not finish his work, he chose to be chemically castrated. The police targeted Alan after his house was burgled and he couldn’t tell them who by, as it had been an acquaintance of his lover, Ron. He was sworn to secrecy about his work during the war and the police were not able to access the information due to it being held secret by the foreign office. As a result, they didn’t trust him. There were too many secrets. It tells us the tales of his brilliant work and the tragedy of his private life in tandem. The cleverness of the non-chronological nature of the play allows the audience to slowly piece together the narrative and the outcomes before they happen, making seeing what happens to Turing even more tragic.

Mark Edel-Hunt (Leopoldstadt) as Turing was wonderful, giving the historical figure life and joy, which made those hard-hitting moments even more heartbreaking for the audience. He was simply divine. Carla Harrison-Hodge (Cyrano de Bergerac) Pat Green, based on the real-life Joan Clarke, portrayed Turing’s platonic love interest wonderfully, helping to show Turing’s wonderful brain by acting as a sound board to his theories. Her confession of love for Alan was difficult to watch, knowing that he could never love her in the same way that she did him. Susie Trayling (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) as Alan’s mother was wonderful, making the historical period of the show prevalent, as she tried to get her very atheist son to go to church.

Joe Usher (Falkland Sound) portrayed the thief Ron Miller and Turing’s lover, Nikos, perfectly. He was able to separate both in such a way that you could barely tell it was the same person. It was fantastic. The rest of the wonderful cast was taken up by Niall Castigan (The Railway Children) as the officer, Mick Ross, who was wonderful in his sympathy towards Turing but had to carry out his duty as an officer; Joseph Edwards (The Red Shoes) as Turing’s childhood friend, Christopher Marcom and a sixth-former; Peter Hamilton (The Promise) as Dilwyn Knox, the Bletchley man who warned Turing about not partaking in his homosexual tendencies, as to save face with the rest of Bletchley and the government.

The set was simple but most definitely effective - it transported you to where it needed to, without it being so complex that it took away from what the actors were doing. The costuming was period-appropriate, with some rather fetching tweed suits going on, which I loved. The added epilogue was beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. The way that the country treated such an important figure makes me feel deflated and atrocious. He was the reason that we won the war and he was prosecuted for being unapologetically himself.

Only 12 years ago was he given a royal pardon, a whole 46 years after the first legislation was brought in towards the legalisation of homosexuality. Alan Turing is now honoured on the £50 note and with a statue in Manchester and is remembered for his work but it makes you wonder what he could have done had he not taken his own life, aged 41. What else could he have achieved? It made you realise how far we, the LGBTQIA+ community, which I am beyond proud to be a part of, has come, but also how far we still have to go. It was only this week that the royal family attended its first ever official LGBTQIA+ engagement, for the military, which I found made the play even more poignant.

Breaking the Code is at HOME in Manchester until Sat 1st November. I urge you to go and see it. Its tale is one that we can all learn from, especially in the current political climate, and would be a shame to miss.