by Hugh Whitemore

director: Neil Arbon

Ostensibly the play is a biography of the WW2 codebreaker Alan Turing. The play alternates between his later and earlier life, merging the two main themes of the play: his mathematical genius and his illegal homosexuality. There are scenes from his schooldays; his hopeless courtship of a fellow worker, discussions with his professor, his naive “relationships” with rent boys and sexual opportunists, as well as his hapless dealings with the police.

There is, of course, mathematical discourse, but nothing significantly difficult. The effect of his homosexuality and the attitude of the society of the time are rather more pointed, leading to the final scene which culminates in Turings’s suicide. The play is structured in a way that suggests a gradual reduction in his life as he attempts to hide his sexuality whilst being a noted personality