A tasty butternut squash pie and a pint of Best to kick things off, then down into the depths once more to see a two hander (two and a half hander?) about a couple journeying to become the first human residents of Mars. It's beautifully performed, laugh out loud funny, cleverly structured and ultimately moving.
It's also very difficult to write about without throwing up some spoilers, so if you intend to go and see it - and I strongly recommend you take the chance if you can - you might want to stop reading now!
Dawn and Neil have won a competition to become the first people to colonise the red planet. Early thirties, an ordinary couple with an economically precarious life, they are looking forward to a new start, a new life, the chance to be part of history. Their naive enthusiasm for the project blinds them to any potential pitfalls. The action takes us through their joy at winning, their period of training and celebrity on earth, the launch into space, their progress through space on the journey to Mars.
But from an early stage we are also treated to flashbacks that gradually reveal the sense of tragedy underlying their apparent optimism, the reasons behind their willingness to escape whatever the odds. And this structural device, simply highlighted by lighting changes, reveals to the audience the emotional depth of the problem the couple are forced to confront in deep space, and the calamitous consequences of their rash decision to leave their home planet.
Rosie Mason excels as Dawn, switching from infectious enthusiasm to concerned anxiety with total conviction. Darren Seed's Neil teeters edgily towards dimwitted caricature at times, but he never quite crosses the line and is convincing as the optimist who always looks for the silver lining.
And the half? The disembodied voice of mission control, guiding the couple through their trip of a lifetime, and tasked with revealing to them the grim truth of their situation. Admirably calm and reassuring. Until the end.
You leave the theatre wondering what they are left to make of the life remaining to them, how you might cope in a similar situation, and pondering how the lack of hope our society imposes on so many of our fellow citizens may lead them into making desperately unsuitable choices. A parable for Cameron's Britain perhaps?
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