The Age Of Enlightenment

Acting dreams do come true it seems. It’s been barely three years since Scottish actor Christopher Adlington graduated from Drama School and already he’s been in TV and movie features such as Raindogs and a soon-to-be-released movie on the life of Scottish poet Robert Burns. And now, he’s landed his first stage role at the Abbey – to be more specific, the Peacock – in the world premiere of Shelagh Stephenson’s play Enlightenment, directed by Ben Barnes.

Stephenson, who also wrote the award winning The Memory of Water and An Experiment with an Air Pump, is the first female British author to be commissioned by the Abbey theatre, and the play has already opened to mixed reviews. It deals with what Christopher calls every parent’s worst fear, namely the disappearance of a child. But as the actor who plays the part of “what seems to be the son who, at one point returns” Adlington suggests that Enlightenment may not be “giving audiences what they are expecting” and that this may be precisely what Stephenson intended.
“I think this is quite an intellectual play and some people come away thinking they haven’t been moved too much, but it leaves people thinking about the subject the next day,” he says. “But the style of the play is not really that emotional, though you do get bursts of emotion. Yet most of that is on the surface and held back."
Can Christopher appreciate that any play which purports to cut to the heart of every parents worst fear could be expected to be highly emotional?
“Yes, but even the title of the play, Enlightenment, is ironic," he says. "And the point is that there is no enlightenment for these people. So you don’t get any answers and I think Shelagh wants you to go away thinking about the current situation in Blair’s Britain, in the sense that there is a lot in the play about white lies and asking has our culture in the West affected the rest of the world so much that we are not really conscious of what we are doing. Like, we have all the wealth and nobody questions why that is and really thinks about the Middle East, so part of the subject of this play is that this family's directly influenced by the fact that their son has gone missing in Southeast Asia and we can only presume something has happened to him, but we don’t know. Then this guy comes back and comes into their house and though he pretends to be their son, he’s not and he’s obviously been demented by events in Asia. So Shelagh is asking how would we deal with it if a situation in terms of the Middle East did come into our own houses."
As an actor, Christopher finds this role “exceedingly challenging” because the character “is basically a sociopath and runs with what he’s given, moment to moment, so though he starts off really friendly, by the end you see, as I say, that he is demented. So there is that range in the role and it is a great part.”
He also regards appearing in Ireland’s National theatre as “absolutely” a privilege.
“Particularly as this is my first gig acting on stage,” he says. ‘When I first read this script I felt, ‘I’ve got to do this play,” but then when I heard it was the Abbey – which I’d heard of, though I hadn’t heard of the Peacock – I was so delighted to be asked to act there because it has such a great reputation in Britain. I also get the sense that the Peacock and Abbey are very committed to new writing.”
Is Christopher bothered by reviews, or does he, like some actors, reject them totally?
“I must be quite lucky because bad reviews don’t seem to stick to me, I just get on with what I’m doing” he says. “But certainly you have to take on board everyone’s opinion. I can’t be objective about this play so it is useful to have people tell you what they thought, whether that is friends or family backstage or reviewers. It’s certainly interesting to hear what people think. And if they make suggestions, it is something I will think about. But I can’t let it affect me too much, because we’ve got to stick to our vision of the play.”

Enlightenment is currently running at the Peacock theatre.