Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Georgina Periam, Greg Pope, Joe Riley, Philip Bulcock, Richard Reed, Sarah Whitehouse, William Hope, Yasmin Honess-Dove, Stephen Critchlow.
Alternative history is a cornerstone of debate, the perpetual what if? of our time that allows us to consider a certain event or time in history and suggest a way in which it could have proceeded to a very different outcome for humankind. It is often quite a fun way in which to challenge your own knowledge of key moments and the rippling effect of Time as it creates and carves out a new future for humanity.
Whilst many a theorist will espouse a heated battle as a turning point, the Cold War has been neglected somewhat, despite its massive role in our recent history, it is perhaps too close to home for the conversation to observe important speculation and opinion; and yet if we steer ourselves to one true moment out of many from the 1960s, if we can see more than just what if Kennedy had not been assassinated, if the Berlin Wall had not been erected, then the key defining alternative would be What if the Soviet Union landed on the Moon first.
It might not seem that important, a casual tidbit of supposition and conjecture; but the reasoning is one that is demonstrably filled with anguish and dangerous consequences, one born out of a true fact of America’s intention to blow up the moon as a show of power in the thankfully aborted Project A119.
To play with such a goldmine of information, to see the Moon landings in their proper historical context and imagine what if? is a playing field for the imagination and one ripe for audio drama.
It is to that end that the Wireless Theatre company, along with the stirring and expressive writing of Robert Valentine, bring forth a superb What If? in the tale of Red Moon.
The Soviet Union have won the race to place a person on the Moon first, the power this moment exudes is enough to send more than ripples across Time, it is a tsunami event, everything that follows for the next decade is built on a premise of revenge, and whilst both the United States and the Soviets have bases on the moon by the time the 70s end, it is far from cordial in the cold depths of space. Indeed, such a scenario could have brought humanity closer to extinction than that which surrounded the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
Robert Valentine’s almost surgical detail captures the aftermath of the moon landing with delicate poignancy, and by framing the narrative around possible espionage, and certainly the appearance of murder, so the listener is placed at the end of a turbulent decade inside an ordinary office where a manifest of parts is the subjected to the rigorous eye of a disgruntled man.
The domino effect is in place, and for former MI5 agent Eddie Sloper is a find that will lead to the death of several people, and the understanding that the world is closer than ever to nuclear annihilation.
Wireless Theatre really set the scene between confrontation and resolution with dignity, a classic tale of intrigue and hypothesis that catches the listener’s interest and imagination from the outset, and one that places the grandness of What if? speculation to its proper place in audio drama releases.
An inspiring piece of theatre, one that has you question the thin strands of existence we stand upon as we watch the world around us descend into new ways of human destruction.
Ian D. Hall