N and I were sitting in Time 4 Thai on North Castle Street having a quick catch up lunch. It’s the first time I’d seen her since starting at the Forum, and I was telling her what I’d been up to last week and told her all about the Caryl Churchill play I’d been to see at the Traverse on Tuesday.
“It’s about a father
and his son, sons, who are clones, and about the son(s) confronting their, his,
their, father, and it raises questions about the essence of identity, and the
ethics of human cloning, and the discussion afterwards touched on everything
from post-Marxist playwriting to medical tourism and the selling of organs; and
from science as a commercial enterprise to how much of our genome we share with
gorillas; and one audience member raised the question whether scientists should
be held morally accountable for the science and technology they create; and
then there was also a debate about economics and the right to bear children and
then someone made a point about the semantics of the phrase ‘to have children’;
and then the archetypal mad scientist who
cloned Dolly the Sheep claimed that she’s not really a clone after all, just a genomic
copy.”
I concluded by telling N
that it’s a really well-known play and when it premiered 10 years ago it even
starred Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig.
“Mmmm, I’d like to
clone Daniel Craig” replied N before
biting into a crispy vegetable spring roll.
Peter Arnott, playwright in residence at The Forum, directed
the rehearsed reading of A Number and
was kind enough to do an on-camera interview with me in between rehearsals. The
video will be on the Forum website soon along with some highlights from the
Q&A.
