Albion

In the ruins of a garden in rural England

In a house which was once a home

One woman searches for seeds of hope

A richly comic and entertaining new drama, exploring British identity and the state of the nation

REVIEWS

★★★★★ "A work of deeply absorbing emotional richness and symphonic density" ~ The Independent

★★★★ "Fascinating, complex what makes the play so enormously intriguing is that, as in his King Charles III, Bartlett shows us as a deeply divided people torn between the urge to preserve the past and to radically reform it" ~ The Guardian

★★★★ "Extraordinary ... Teeming with life ... A beautiful meditation on family and friends, false hopes and busted dreams" ~ The Times

★★★★★ "Bartlett pays homage to Chekhov, matching his sense of domesticity's mixture of stultifying banality and desperate strangeness - while also calling to mind the wistful cleverness of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia shot through with shrewdly observed humour, and there are moments of vivid poignancy" ~ Evening Standard

★★★★ "'An intensely felt, delicately observed drama spanning a century of social change, that coaxes into blood-red bloom affecting ideas about home, identity, and love a hybrid of earthy sensuality, sentimental nostalgia and damaging emotional frigidity that is peculiarly English. It's a domestic drama painfully ripped up by its roots, a depiction of modern England's dreaming full of hopeless longing, fear and despair while the setting appears genteel, the drama goes for the gut. It's gloriously rich, achingly sad, and quite beautiful" ~ The Stage

★★★★ "Impressive and ambitious Mike Bartlett uses a garden, this most English of metaphors, to tackle an array of our nation's contemporary themes and anxieties" ~ Radio Times

★★★★ "A gripping family drama crackling with humour illustrates the dangers of expecting romantic ideals to bloom into practical change, particularly when those beliefs are nurtured in a wistful bubble outstanding, thrillingly ambitious theatre" ~ Whatsonstage

"Grips its audience by the throat, giving them much to laugh about but also allowing viewers to reconsider what it means to be English today" ~ British Theatre Guide