A Child of Science review – heartbreak and hard work

Bristol Old Vic
Gareth Farr’s account of IVF’s development is briskly directed but the science feels under-dramatised

Towards the end of Gareth Farr’s A Child of Science, which explores the development of IVF, there is a remarkable scene of profound pathos and personal devastation. Huddersfield housewife Margaret (superlatively performed by Adelle Leonce), who has taken part in the trials and is otherwise known as Patient 38, is given unwelcome news. But it is received with such heroic grace that many in the audience were moved to tears. This is a play that sensitively deals with what is clearly an emotive and important subject for many.

It is therefore unfortunate that so much else feels relatively rote in this fictionalised account of the events that led to the birth of the first baby through in vitro fertilisation in 1978. The narrative is driven by the scenes between Robert Edwards, Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy (respectively Tom Felton, a commanding Jamie Glover and Meg Bellamy), who successfully pioneered the technique. Under Matthew Dunster’s direction, it zips along at a brisk, televisual pace. Anna Fleischle’s dynamic stage design of sliding panels and doors adds to this fluidity, deftly sustained by an ensemble who shift between characters as quickly as one scene transitions into the next.