Breaking the Code – Liverpool Playhouse

Occasionally, a production comes along that is so remarkable on so many levels you know it is going to stay with you for a very long time, and the current production of Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code fits that bill. I say ‘current production’, as I first saw this in London with Derek Jacobi, so my expectations were understandably high. However, this revived production surpassed all those expectations and then some.

While the central element of Turing’s life is his work at Bletchley Park in breaking the Enigma code, the play reaches back into his boyhood and afterwards to his life as an academic to explore what inspired his brilliance at mathematics and cyphers and how society’s attitude towards his homosexuality drove him to suicide.

The first two scenes, where the action jumps from Turing reporting a burglary to the police to his childhood and his relationships with his close friend Christopher and his mother, with no change of costume/age for Turing to indicate the difference in timeline, requires a momentary readjustment but establishes the format for the rest of the play. The sparse but flexible design (Jonathan Fensom) and the excellent use of lighting (Johanna Down) and sound (Robin Colyer) combine with thought-provoking and insightful direction by Jesse Jones, where not one word or gesture is surplus, allowing the actors to tell a story driven by character and illuminated by the genius of Turing’s mind.

And what a cast it is! Mark Edel-Hunt as Turing is quite simply astounding, his stammer indicating his difficulty in coping with the unwritten code of personal relationships but disappearing when he speaks with passion about mathematics, and it is easy to understand why Pat (Carla Harrison-Hodge), his mathematician colleague, falls in love with him. But there is not one weak performance throughout, with Mick Ross as the police inspector whose attitude to Turing changes over the course of the play as he comes to know more of his role in WW2, and Joe Usher, as two of Turing’s lovers. Also outstanding are Susie Trayling, the mother who struggles to understand her talented but, as she and society see it – flawed – son; and Peter Hamilton Dyer as Knox, his manager at Bletchley Park, whose impeccable timing is central to many of the comic moments scattered throughout the play.

A nice touch is to have Turing’s childhood friend (Joseph Edwards) reappearing at the end as a present day student to give Neil Bartlett’s epilogue reflecting not only on Turing’s impact on modern computing but how society has, hopefully, changed in its attitude to the LGBTQ community.

At the end, the cast came to the front, bowed, and left the stage, and the lights came up, which is simply another indication of the thoughtfulness of this extraordinary production leaving the audience to reflect on the questions asked and the issues raised.   

Beautifully written and brilliantly acted, this production is not to be missed, but you’ll need to be quick – judging by the audience comments as they left the theatre, everyone is going to be telling their friends to see it, too.

At the Liverpool Playhouse from 21^st to 25^th October 2025.

Reviewer: Johanna Roberts

Reviewed: 21st October 2025

North West End UK Rating: