'Radio' review or 'Is this a good signal?'

Radio, Al Smith
Arcola Theatre, 24th June 2019
Written for The Guardian

Here’s a play to enjoy with your eyes closed. It’s not that Radio isn’t lovely to watch. Josh Roche directs with graceful restraint and Sophie Thomas’s set is backed by sweeping colourful strings that hint at radio waves, jet streams, swinging hammocks and shooting stars. Adam Gillen is quietly compelling as a young boy who dreams of space travel but finds himself crashing back down to Earth with a thud. However, there’s something about Al Smith’s searching 2006 play – which has been revived by Audible, the audiobook and podcast company, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing – that’ll make you want to close your eyes and dream.

Gillen plays Charles L Fairbanks Jr as a walking apology of a man, rippling with regret and with a forgotten sparkle in his eyes. Charles falteringly remembers his childhood spent growing up in “flatter than a pancake” Kansas, the exact centre of the US. Gently, and oh so cleverly, Smith reminds us that this country that Charles believes in, the father he loves, the flag he waves proudly, the ambitions of becoming an astronaut, which he wears like a badge of honour, all are founded on shaky ground indeed.

This is a peculiarly subtle show and sometimes it feels a little too still and thoughtful, a little too “made for radio” perhaps. But there are moments that’ll transport you, lift you up with the radio waves and take you to a different and more hopeful time. There’s also a sticky sort of sadness to this play about a country that dares to dream big yet is doomed, surely, to fail.