Revenants

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

While the Second World War rages, an English country garden is the place to escape from the chaos – the din of an occasional Lancaster bomber overhead notwithstanding. In this bucolic paradise, a trio meet – or rather, two of them do; the elderly Queen Mary and Bride of Frankenstein actor Ernest Thesiger, himself part of the upper crust. Also in attendance is the Queen’s British-caribbean chauffeur, Walcott.

The Queen is nearing the end of her life and intends to make what may be her final connections. In the 25th year after her Russian Romanov relations were murdered by the Bolsheviks, she is in a mood to decry revolution. “What the loudest think is the thought of all,” she sighs.

This point is also 25 years before the assassination of Martin Luther King, and in the invasion of this garden by young American private Waverley Monk there are the roots of the black emancipation movement. A medical student back home, here he’s a cook who is beaten by white colleagues for being “uppity”, and his current desertion seems inevitable.

The trio take pity on him – with Walcott reflecting on his own background and Thesiger his homosexuality, which religious Monk finds hard to countenance. And although the illustration of Monk’s flight is somewhat pat, the evocation of the 20th century’s currents flowing together is rich and well-performed.

Until today, 5pm.