There has been much comment in recent years upon what appears to be theatre’s – and indeed theatregoers’ – increasingly thin skin, as venues seek to avoid giving shock or offence by providing ever more elaborate trigger warnings for even the most inoffensive of spectacles. Cue much right-wing harrumphing about the absurdity of the snowflake generation imposing its needs upon the populace as a whole. This debate leapt back into the news recently with reports that audience members watching The Years at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, north London, felt faint during a scene featuring a graphic narrative about a backstreet abortion and its bloody aftermath.
A few people needed to leave the theatre, resulting in the play being paused for 10 minutes. It is of no little interest to me that it was mainly male audience members who were distressed by this and required medical assistance. Like any woman, I have to brace myself mentally when it comes to accounts of knitting needles stuck up a vagina, and this scene, immaculately played by that fierce and uncompromising actress Romola Garai , is undoubtedly gruelling.
The account of the hours after the abortion, which the protagonist is forced to endure alone in a student hall of residence, with only a communal bathroom along the corridor at her disposal when the foetus detaches itself, is tremor-inducing stuff for any spectator with a pulse, not to mention a heart. Yet this incident also serves as a timely reminder of the unfil.