REVIEW: Never Let Me Go at Chichester Festival Theatre - bleak theme haunts long after final curtain

It is difficult to say too much about the storyline of Never Let Me Go. It is designed to reveal itself in glimpses – hiding behind a veneer of the normal and acceptable before it delivers its brutal truths.

Make no mistake, the final revelations are so repugnant that they are almost impossible to put out of your thoughts.

This is no pre-Christmas pick me up. There is nothing here to put a spring in the step or a smile on the face.

Except perhaps the quality of the acting which is superb. Nell Barlow’s performance as the central character Kathy is sublime. Matilda Bailes as Ruth and Angus Imrie as Tommy underscore the sheer intensity of the production.

It is, without doubt, down to them that this play continues to thrash about in the mind long after the final curtain. Them – and the innocence of their characters who accept their fate without demur.

There is nothing gratuitous or obscene in its delivery. Quite the contrary. Which is why ultimately it is so desperate, so depressing and so difficult to watch.

Lambs to the slaughter is a phrase that comes to mind.

We move through time from what appears to be a hospital ward back to school days and points in between. The young people have their whole lives before them – but nothing is quite as it seems.

Why they didn’t run away and escape their fate when clearly the opportunities were there remains an exasperating question – perhaps reminding us all of the power of the familiar to hold us in its grasp. In reality, in their situation, would we have behaved differently?

The audience might like to think so but experience in other contexts sometimes suggests otherwise.

In the midst of it all is a love story with all the usual complications that arise when two women love the same man.

There is hope too – but utterly misplaced, naive and without substance.

My Fitbit suggests my eyes might have closed momentarily in the first half. There was no such danger in the second.

On returning home I watched a half hour sitcom on the television as some kind of antidote.

Never Let Me Go is as pungent as the strongest pure chocolate and will prove something of an unforgettable masterpiece lingering in the mind long after other more joyous plays in the winter season have faded.

But if you are looking for a slice of entertainment to cheer you up I would give this one a miss.