ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG
Park Theatre
★★★
“A very British tale of love lost during the second world war years”
In the intimate 90 studio at Park Theatre is One Day When We Were Young, written by Nick Payne in 2009. A three scene, time shifting two-hander about the lives of Leonard (Barney White) and Violet (Cassie Bradley).
A dowdy room in a Bath hotel where the young unmarried couple are spending what appears to be their first night together, and possibly their last, the night before Leonard heads off to war. It is 1942 and with promises of waiting for each other forever, the nerves and innocence of the couple shows; one is terrified to go to war and the other naively wants the night to be romantically perfect for them. It is not and they are interrupted by the bombs of the Baedeker raid.
The blitz is shown with blinding lights flashing and loud sound effects – and a very simple “special effect” showing the window suddenly broken. Dramatically that all works well. But then the actors were suddenly shouting that they must get dressed and get to the bomb shelter, whilst taking the bed covers off the bed and rolling them up, running off and on with bits of furniture as they take the bedroom apart and replace it with a park bench.
Scene two is a snowy park in the early 1960s. This middle scene should have been the most heart-breaking but the dynamics between the couple does not quite gel in both script and acting. Clearly Violet had not waited for Leonard and she has been married since 1944 to her music teacher husband, has a 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter plus washing machine and television, living her perfect life; whilst Leonard is a broken man having survived being a POW in Japan. He lives with his mum in Luton.
The final scene – and post more rather unnecessary moving of furniture around the small set – it is 2002, which makes the pair now at least in their late seventies. Leonard is still totally devoted to Violet, and Violet is now a widow… Old age and Leonard sadly has onset dementia as he repeatedly asks how with the train delays her journey to his Luton home has been. There is a confusing power cut (unexplained historically, mea culpa if wrong), and one rather lovely moment when Leonard lights a pair of sparklers for light.
The sound (Aidan Good) uses music from each period to set each scene, but if you didn’t know the snippets of music playing it didn’t help. Scene two has continual low-level playground sounds which worked to show they were in a park. But in the third scene the inclement British rainstorm sound keeps disappearing and then returning; and it would have carried more gravitas of the doomed love affair, if it had continued throughout the final scene, even at a low-level.
A very British tale of love lost during the second world war years. One Day When We Were Young shows how we Brits have an inability to show emotions and to say what truly should not be left unsaid. The script doesn’t fill in those complex undertones, so feels a tad unfinished. In the final scene, Violet’s rendition of “their song” is sung without Leonard present, which seems an odd directorial decision by director James Haddrell – as that could have shown each of their true feelings in that moment.
ONE DAY WHEN WE WERE YOUNG
Park Theatre
Reviewed on 3rd March 2025
by Debbie Rich
Photography by Danny Kaan
Previously reviewed at this venue:
ANTIGONE | ★★★★★ | February 2025
CYRANO | ★★★ | December 2024
BETTE & JOAN | ★★★★ | December 2024
GOING FOR GOLD | ★★★★ | November 2024
THE FORSYTE SAGA | ★★★★★ | October 2024
AUTUMN | ★★½ | October 2024
23.5 HOURS | ★★★ | September 2024
BITTER LEMONS | ★★★½ | August 2024
WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU | ★★★★★ | August 2024
THE MARILYN CONSPIRACY | ★★★★ | June 2024
IVO GRAHAM: CAROUSEL | ★★★★ | June 2024
A SINGLE MAN | ★★★★ | May 2024
