More a long conversation than a play, David Harrower’s Blackbird explores another disturbing subject in a confrontation between an adult woman and the man who sexually abused her when she was 12.

Set in the messy canteen where he works, the woman, Una (Alison Bell) and the man, Ray (Greg Stone) lay bare the equally messy state their lives have become. 

Harrower lives up to his name. If the details recalled by Una and Ray aren’t harrowing enough, he ends his play with them reliving their attraction as well as the trauma, which is more disturbing than the blunt way they discuss what went on between them.

Bell is quiet and subdued, suggesting Una’s many motives for searching Ray out. Stone creates a man with enough subtlety to suggest either a genuine penitent or a clever criminal. Both actors build the expected anger, resentment and shame, then pounce on the unexpected twist: was this a case of sexual abuse or sexual obsession?

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