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Confronting the unthinkable
Can we afford to pretend that nuclear weapons don't exist? Gameshow director MATTHEW EVANS talks to Mayer Wakefield about the issues their new production Nuclear Future raises
PIC CAP Existential anxieties: Leda Douglas as Astrid in Nuclear Future Pic: Adam Levy

What drew you to tackling the issue of nuclear weapons in your latest show?

Nuclear weapons affect all our lives but they are not part of the public conversation and we wanted to tell a human story that made people think and feel in new ways.

The impact of nuclear weapons feels so huge, it's difficult to think about and even harder to talk about. The effects of a nuclear attack work on scales of time and space way beyond anyone's everyday experience and we enjoyed the challenge of finding ways to communicate these ideas.

Theatre can make a story feel immediate and relatable even if its scale ranges from the subatomic to the intergalactic because theatre is the medium where human beings can communicate together at the same time in the same place.

Why now, in 2019?

How are you translating the enormity of the topic onto the stage?

Threads had an enormous impact on the public's understanding of the horrific reality of nuclear weapons when it was shown on BBC2 in 1984. What role do the arts have in highlighting the horror of nuclear weapons?

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