Breaking the Code

Breaking the Code, in this spare and beautifully paced revival from Jesse Jones, takes a deeply complex man and subtly lays him bare. It doesn’t try to dazzle you with spy-thriller frills, or set your head spinning with heavy tech and maths talk.

It just listens to the man and asks you to do the same.

And it’s all the better for it.

Mark Edel-Hunt makes a near-perfect Alan Turing, stammering round corners, slipping jokes in sideways and then suddenly pinning you to the back wall with his pain and grief. His clarity in the more technical moments is admittedly impressive - though fortunately rare, but it’s the emotional resonance that stands out. The human awkwardness. The stubborn flashes of pride. His loneliness that grows through the show like weight he is asked to carry.

The cast around him are just as strong. Carla Harrison-Hodge brings a real ache to Pat Green without ever tipping into tragedy. The scene where she confesses her love is brutal in its stillness and had me in tears with a two simple words.

Peter Hamilton Dyer is a wry, warmly paternal Dillwyn Knox. Joseph Edwards is heartbreaking in both of his roles, and Joe Usher brings spark and sensuality to Nikos, one of the few people who really gets to hold Turing’s joy, and nuance to his other role as Ron Miller.

There’s no weak link. Everyone is on it!

Design-wise, it’s all very stripped back, just a few desks and chairs, a smart lighting shift, and you’re in a new place or time. There’s something archival about the space, greyish, a bit dusty, history clinging to the walls. It works, and reminded me a little of the Lost Atoms set. And it means that when the light turns golden in the Greece scene, or when the house lights come up on a key moment, the shift lands hard.

About those house lights.

It’s such a simple trick, but used here with real care. It happens twice. Once to subtly close the gap between us and the story. Once, at the end, to refuse the comfort of darkness. That final epilogue scene, delivered with quiet force, hit me straight in the feels. There’s no hiding when the lights are up. People could see my tears. I didn’t care.

My one niggle is a short one, there’s a speech in the Greece sequence where Turing launches into a full rundown of the Bletchley work. It’s well delivered, and I get the impulse to ground the story, but it doesn’t feel needed. We already understand the weight of what they achieved and the how of it.

Still, that’s a small note in a show that otherwise threads the needle near perfectly. It never becomes overly technical, but the scale of what was accomplished is clear. And it never paints Turing as a saint, which makes the injustice of how he was treated land all the harder.

This production puts the man before the myth and trusts us to see the contradictions as his humanity.

It’s moving, sharp, often quietly funny, and leaves its mark.

Go see it.

Cast

• Alan Turing: Mark Edel-Hunt

• Pat Green: Carla Harrison-Hodge

• Dillwyn Knox: Peter Hamilton Dyer

• Sara Turing / Smith: Susie Trayling

• Ron Miller / Nikos: Joe Usher

• Christopher Morcom / Sixth Former: Joseph Edwards

• Mick Ross: Niall Costigan

Creative team

• Director: Jesse Jones

• Writer: Hugh Whitemore (with new epilogue by Neil Bartlett)

• Set & Costume Designer: Jonathan Fensom

• Lighting Designer: Johanna Town

• Sound Designer & Composer: Robin Colyer

• Movement Director: Gerrard Martin

• Voice & Dialect Coach: Gemma Boaden

• Casting Director: Hannah Miller

• Assistant Director: Kitty Benford