Even These Things – Royal Exchange
Anniversaries are the central plank of this season at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, with both the celebration of 50 years since the theatre was established and three decades since June 1996, when the explosion of the largest bomb in mainland Britain since WWII devastated the heart of the city centre. The latter is commemorated with Even These Things, a new piece of writing by Irish Mancunian Rory Mullarkey which seeks to place the bombing within the cultural identity of Manchester’s history and explain its part in the renaissance of the modern city. As with the city it celebrates, Even These Things is a complex creation: beautiful in individual parts, but one that does not always work together as a cohesive whole.
The play comprises three acts — 110 minutes without an interval — spa...