UK Theatre Network

IMAGINE DROWNING by Terry Johnson

 First produced at Hampstead Theatre in 1991, Imagine Drowning won the John Whiting Award and is now presented by critically acclaimed Waxwing Theatre at the Rosemary Branch in Islington. 

The play weaves together two different timelines a few weeks apart. A woman arrives in a dilapidated B&B in Cumbria. She is looking for her husband David, a journalist, who disappeared two weeks ago. David was on to a big story concerning the nuclear power plant at Sellafield. Jane’s only clue to her husband’s whereabouts is a postcard featuring the B&B that David sent to her. She encounters a variety of bizarre characters – a former astronaut who arrived at the beach from Montana via the Moon, a political activist in a wheelchair, a morbid teenager who indulges in staging gory scenes, and a forgetful landlady who keeps a plethora of pets who never die. Nobody seems to have seen David but he was there as we find out in the second timeline that tells his story. 

Imagine Drowning starts as a whodunit but there is much more to the play. Terry Johnson described it as “a sort of dream play about the pain we’re all immersed in.” Certain scenes seem quite dreamlike when the actors paddle like aquatic animals in the dimmed lights accompanied by whale song. The sea and water is a prevalent motive throughout this exciting and magnificent production.  

There are outstanding performances from Joanne Hildon as the landlady, Tom Harris as the political activist, and Rory McCallum as the astronaut turned beach bum.

Rosemary Branch Theatre
22 September to 11 October 
Tues - Sat 7.30pm
Sundays 2.30pm
£12 / 10 concessions

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