An outpouring of love fills York Theatre Royal this week as Frantic Assembly return with Lost Atoms – a tender, thought-provoking exploration of love in all its chaotic complexity.
It’s less about the act of falling in love, and more about the stories, perceptions, and distortions we attach to it.
A co-production with Curve, Mayflower Southampton and Lyric Hammersmith Theatres, Lost Atoms arrives with Frantic Assembly’s unmistakable DNA.
Under the direction of Scott Graham and with a script from the ever-insightful Anna Jordan, it refuses to follow the well-trodden romantic comedy framework. Instead, it spins something far more raw and reflective; a portrait of two people colliding, connecting and coming undone.
Jordan herself insists that the play is ‘made with love’, and that sentiment radiates through every creative element and each beautiful contradiction.
Lost Atoms is at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday 7 to Saturday 11 October.
Visually, the production is nothing short of stunning. Andrzej Goulding’s ingenious set design becomes both a box of memory and playground, a physical manifestation of the mind. Drawers slide open to reveal hidden fragments, while Simisola Majekodunmi’s lighting breathes life into each recollection, flickering between warmth and shadow as the tone suddenly shifts. Together, they transform Jordan’s text into a living, breathing collage of emotion and imagery.
Frantic Assembly’s trademark physical theatre only complements this further, bringing its own language to echo the instability, balance and surrender that love so demands.
The staging beautifully mirrors the ebb and flow of the relationship we witness, a delicate dance between intimacy and isolation, between holding on and letting go. Every object on stage seems to hold a secret; every lightbulb and memory drawer reveals a new revelation. It’s poetic in its approach and strikingly tender.
At the centre of this kaleidoscope are two exceptional performances. Hannah Sinclair Robinson blazes through the role of Jess, a self-proclaimed ‘chaos queen’, whose boundless energy hides layers of vulnerability. Her performance is magnetic, fierce, funny, and heartbreakingly human.
Joe Layton matches her with equal depth as Robbie, the apparent calm to her storm, whose own inner world proves just as fractured and fascinating. What begins as a tale of opposites soon unfolds into something far richer; together, they navigate Jordan’s quick-paced and complex dialogue and Graham’s intricate movement to create a chemistry that feels lived-in, flawed and utterly real.
To hold an audience in the palm of your hand for two hours is no small feat, but the silence in the theatre said it all. Every breath felt shared, every pause deliberate. It was particularly heartening to see so many young theatre groups and aspiring performers in the audience, completely absorbed – this is a huge testament to the universal language of Frantic Assembly’s work. Their blend of text, movement and design continues to inspire a generation of theatre-makers who understand that storytelling is as much physical as it is verbal.
What makes Lost Atoms so effective is the way it invites us into its own process of reflection. As Jess and Robbie challenge one another’s memories, we are forced to question our own – do we ever truly remember love as it was, or only as we wish it to be? It’s a clever concept and universal truth that lingers long after the final blackout.
Though the play touches on difficult themes, in which I heed a warning to research, it handles them with sensitivity and purpose. This isn’t heaviness for heaviness’ sake, rather an invitation to feel, confront, and to somewhat heal.
Ultimately, Lost Atoms is a production that pulses with life, intimate, intense, and quietly devastating in the most beautiful way. It makes you feel, yes, but it also makes you think; about love, memory, and all the moments, big and small, that build and break us. But perhaps most powerfully, it reminds us that our perceptions of love are as unpredictable and fleeting as the atoms that form us.
Step into this mesmerising world of memory and motion at York Theatre Royal, running until Saturday 11 October. Tickets start from £15 and are available here.
