Nicola Walker shines in this heavy and impactful piece that explores the fracturing of one mother, immersed in grief for her missing son.

In just over 100 minutes, playwright Nick Payne’s script pulls us through the chaos that is Miriam’s life. Struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of her teenage son Oscar, Miriam (Walker) is shown across three time periods: the immediate aftermath of Oscar vanishing, a year into his disappearance, and then seven years on, still missing. It is a bold attempt to look at how one mother struggles to accept the brutal new reality for her family, and largely succeeds, thanks to Walker’s impeccable portrayal, its aim at exploring the impact on one woman’s psyche.

Walker’s gripping portrayal of Miriam, totally destroyed by her son’s absence, carries the play, even through its choppier moments. It is a thoughtful portrayal, with Walker’s deft ability to allow dialogue to linger, stutter and urgently roll off the tongue, helping to immerse us in Miriam’s pain. Miriam is not totally likeable, which is an important plot point, but she is worth our empathy, which Walker’s devastating delivery achieves. 

Alongside Walker, Paul Higgins’ David, Oscar’s father and Miriam’s ex-husband, struggles to come to terms with his son’s disappearance, while also finding it tough to cope with Miriam’s increasingly erratic and dangerous behaviour. It is through the other characters, rather than Miriam, that the play loses its way a little. Higgins’ David fluctuates too much, and his relationship with his child, Margaret (Ella Lily Hyland), as well as Nancy (Alby Baldwin), from Miriam’s first marriage, is hard to judge. The children, grown up by the end of the play, provide some neat focus on their pain at not just losing a brother, but seemingly losing a mother too, as Miriam’s mania peaks, which does conclude in a well-crafted final familial showdown.

That said, Payne’s script does struggle to find the right tone. There is too much going on here, and it goes to extremes. A scene which includes a seance, led by Isabel Adomakoh-Young’s Mia, draws laughter from Miriam and, to some extent, the audience too. In fact, there is probably too much comedy here. Margaret’s clownish boyfriend Benjamin (Harry Kershaw) gawps and lingers during family dinners as a spare part, and one wonders whether the character itself is needed, even if the inclusion of his impending child with mum-to-be Margaret offers Miriam a chance to ruminate on motherhood.

Nevertheless, the play does not fail to pick up its urgency when Walker is actively on stage, which, thankfully, is for the most part. It is a tremendous individual performance that rescues the script’s dodgier moments and offers a moving look at loss when there is nothing to hold on to.