Review: Theatre

Rocket to the Moon by Clifford Odetts, National Theatre, Keeley Hawes, Joseph Millson, Jessica Raine, Nicolas Woodeson

Complete. Character-driven drama which is refreshing and accessible: the unlikely setting of a dentist’s waiting room provides the backdrop for ambition, dreams of love, commitment and mutual respect. The set is stunning with high windows which let in a typical high-rise, New York backdrop signalling time of day and the weather; with a kind of no-mans land in black and white check which forms an echoey corridor to the outside world and other rooms, of other dreams. It is summer, sultry and hot; a threshold before the waning autumn where decisions are made. There is a good deal of contrast in this play: man, woman; youth, age; aspiration, reality. The script is tight and the performances first-rate……