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Review and production photos: The awkward, honest and hilarious truth in #BU21 at Trafalgar Studios 2

Using real testimonies from terrorist attacks around the world Stuart Slade's play, BU21, imagines the aftermath of a plane being bombed out of the sky over London. It follows six people - a combination of victims, witnesses and those who lost loved ones - and in a series of interweaving monologues charts what they go through physically and mentally.

At one point during the play, Alex (Alexander Forsyth) breaks the fourth wall and accuses the audience of being into 'misery porn' and to a certain extent that is true, it is the theatrical equivalent of rubbernecking what we hope we never have to actually experience. However the play is also much more than that, it is primarily a play of human truth. The characters' responses are as different as their personalities. None are affected in quite the same way and each deal with the tragedy differently.

There are the obvious emotions of anger, fear and guilt but it is in the detail, those moments when the sub-conscience brain operates without the usual societal and moral filters where things gets really interesting. Sometimes awkward, sometimes painful, sometimes funny and not always PC, these are the revealing moments, the moments when you get glimpses of how humans behave in the most extraordinary situations.

In Alex's accusation, and others, he makes the audience more than just voyeurs, he challenges you to admit to your own truths. BU21 is funnier than its premise suggests and there is an awkward irony in that. Of course, it has its startlingly grim moments and there is one particularly powerful scene when one of the characters mulls over what they would do in the 22 seconds it takes the plane to fall and hit the ground but it is the human insight that makes this play really hit its mark.

I'm giving it five stars, it runs at the Trafalgar Studios 2 until Feb 18 and is definitely worth a look. It's 100 minutes without an interval.

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