The Second Minute

Photos by Robert Day

With theatre programmes for the next four years inevitably being stocked up with work commemorating the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, Nottingham Playhouse have begun their offerings rather well. The Second Minute is Andy Barrett's new play that charts the relationship that regimental archivist Laura develops with young Tommy, Thomas Swann, through reading his correspondence with his mother a century ago. These real letters form a central part of the play's narrative and become as real as the contemporary setting of the cramped regimental archive office where Laura reads.

The letters, sent to his publican mother back at the Crown Inn in Rolleston, just outside of Newark, cover much of the war from when Tom enlists in the Sherwood Foresters, joining Kitchener's army in 1914, to his deployments in the muddy fields of France and Flanders. The letters chart Tom's progress from raw recruit in basic training to a young man hardened by the experiences of a new kind of war. This unfolds before us as Laura reads and makes sense of the language Tom uses and the horrors he faces. There is wonderful humour in these letters too, with talk of presents for birthdays, food sent from home and gossip around the village.

Laura's tender reading of Thomas' letters contrasts very neatly with Alan, her volunteer assistant who has only recently demobbed and is missing the Forces life. He too becomes embroiled in Tom's story, searching for records, other soldiers' letters, maps. The juxtaposition of their approaches, the social and the military, acts as a frame from which to view the whole piece and the relationships contained in it: Laura and Tom, Laura and Alan, Tom and his mother. It is the duality of being over there and being stuck home. This is most keenly commented on in Alan's statement that he, as a former soldier, has a greater affinity with anyone who has ever taken up arms than anyone who hasn't. That said, Alan mellows throughout the piece and becomes sucked into Laura's empathetic connection to Tom, and making connections with the other men he finds in his own research. The play too has been fastidiously researched and the historical tit-bits that are woven into the narrative are fascinating, such as the butter shortage of 1917 and the reason for the name, the second minute.

There sections that didn't work, such as Alan's welcomings of the audience before each act - these weren't sufficiently framed in the world of the play, causing them to feel tacked on. There were tangential plot lines too for Laura and Alan that are never fully explored and feel a bit superfluous. Whilst it's understandable why they were in there, especially Laura's, but were caught in a no-man's-land of their own - not unneeded but equally not developed enough to satisfy the interest they create in the narrative. I wanted to know more here.

The actors do a fine job. Adam Horvath, who play Tom, is a standout. His performance is nuanced and the audience are drawn in by his four year journey which is truncated into the hour and twenty minutes of the show. In her role as Laura, Beatrice Comins is the anchor of the play and her performance commendably stays clear of any frantic, clichéd stereotypes into which it could have slipped. Rob Goll as Alan conversely veers toward over-acting in his boyish enthusiasm, but makes amends in his softer moments when the cracks appear in his ex-squaddie armour.

However, the great strength of the piece is the weaving of the two time frames together, where we can at once see now and then, side-by-side, in a way that felt appropriate to making the historical artefacts of the letters the engaging heart of the narrative. It's a sharp little piece of writing that is carefully crafted and that deserves to pack out the remaining venues of its continuing rural tour.

The Second Minute will be performed at the Nottingham Playhouse on Monday 26 May at 4pm and 7pm as part of the NEAT14 Festival.

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