THE BOMB – A Partial History is a season of plays from leading contemporary dramatists, charting the political history of the Nuclear Bomb and its proliferation from 1940 to the present day.
FIRST BLAST (1940 – 1992) features plays by John Donnelly, Elena Gremina, Amit Gupta, Zinnie Harris & Ron Hutchinson. It is the first year of World War II, and in Whitehall two émigré Jewish scientists are waiting for a meeting to get the British establishment to take their nuclear research seriously. The following plays then trace the history of the Labour party wrestling with the decision to build the Atomic Bomb, the Cuban missile crisis from a Russian perspective, China’s war with India and the subsequent development of India’s bomb, the break-up of the Soviet Union and the unilateral disarmament of Ukraine.
SECOND BLAST (1992 – 2012) features plays by Lee Blessing, Ryan Craig, David Greig, Zinnie Harris, Diana Son & Colin Teevan. A contemporary take on the non-proliferation debate looking at Israel and Iran’s nuclear capability, the 'axis of evil' speech and its affect on North Korea, the U.K.’s continuing reliance on Trident in the post Cold War era, through to the current negotiations with Iran and weapons’ inspections there.