The Beautiful Future Is Coming
★★★★☆ Wise
Traverse (Venue 15): Tues 29 Jul – Sun 24 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Bristol Old Vic’s The Beautiful Future Is Coming by Flora Wilson Brown at the Traverse is a beautifully performed rumination on the climate emergency and human responses to it.
In the 1850s, Eunice (Phoebe Thomas) is conducting research into carbon dioxide and its effects on temperature, but no-one will take her seriously. Even her husband John (Matt Whitchurch), proud though he is, is mostly surprised that a woman’s brain could come up with such things.
Matt Whitchurch and Phoebe Thomas. Pic: Aly Wight
In the very near future, work colleagues Claire (Nina Singh) and Dan (Jyuddah James) begin a relationship, just as more extreme weather affects London.
And at the end of this century, with storms and fires raging, Malcolm (James Bradwell) and the heavily pregnant Ana (Rosie Dwyer) are conducting desperate research in an underground seed bank in Svalbard.
There are real dangers in such multi-strand narratives; the various stories will be too detached, some will be less interesting than others, the end result will be lumpy and disjointed. Here, however, but the beautifully limpid direction of Nancy Medina ensures a real flow both within and between sections. Simple things like scene changes take on a significance as the three stories inform, support and explain each other. There are still moments that don’t convince, but far fewer than there might be.
dovetail elegantly
Wilson Brown’s writing has a lot to do with this as well, of course; the three narratives are discrete and have their own characteristics but dovetail elegantly.
The description as ‘fast-paced, funny and wildly inventive’ does it few favours. It is more melancholy, elegiac (even a little slow at times) and rather predictable. But it is none the worse for that. There is a sympathy and realism to the writing that make the three different pairings all thoroughly believable.
Nina Singh and Jyuddah James. Pic: Aly Wight
Thomas as the frustrated nerd-out-of-time, and Whitchurch as her loving but bewildered husband, are recognisably Victorian yet thoroughly immediate. Dwyer and Bradwell as the underground colleagues are similarly compelling, with Bradwell’s awkwardness tremendously well done.
And best of all is the near-contemporary couple. This is one of the most touching and credible portrayals of a nascent relationship that you could hope to see, with the excellent Singh and the simply magnificent James being utterly convincing.
Aldo Vázquez’s elegant set and Ryan Day’s lighting give each segment its own identity with grace and economy. Elena Peña’s sound design and Femi Temowo’s compositions are extremely evocative.
all the more pertinent
The 14+ recommendation is presumably largely due to some of the language, which could in all honesty be removed without much fuss. The rest of it is certainly suitable for teenage audiences – the content may be apocalyptic, but that just makes it all the more pertinent.
The biggest problem is that some of the writing stays on the surface. The efforts of the cast don’t quite disguise the fact that some of the characters are not as fleshed out as they might be, and some of the storytelling is a trifle functional – something that becomes clearer as you approach the 90-minute mark.
At its best, though, this is very good indeed, and addressees urgent issues that too many plays continue to ignore. The tiny pinpricks of hope it offers are important – not despite the fact that they seem so small and insignificant, but precisely because of that.
This production may be flawed, but in many ways it is as heartbreakingly sad and as beautifully wise a piece of theatre as you’re going to see.
Running time: One hour and 30 Minutes(no interval).
Traverse Theatre (Traverse 1), 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED. (Venue 15).
Tuesday 29 July – Sunday 24 August 2025.
Daily (Not Mon): Various times (see website for details)
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Book here on the Traverse Website.
Bristol Old Vic: www.bristololdvic.org.uk/.
James Bradwell and Rosie Dwyer. Pic: Aly Wight
ENDS
