After the Fact at theSpace @ Niddry Street Review
After the Fact focuses on four friends as they navigate life whilst under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation and looking at how it affects their friendships.
Written by Nina Cattanach, the piece does its best to develop each girl’s arc, providing them with monologues to the audience that give us information they feel like they can’t share with their friends. At the beginning of the show, there’s a good balance of personal dilemmas and the weight of being bombed at a moment's notice. However as the show progresses, the secondary does seem to fade for the most part until the last five/ten minutes to the point that you forget it's even a storyline, acting more as a vessel, never really exploring the issue. This isn’t helped by the length of the piece, feeling short and almost abruptly ending, even an extra few minutes could have done it the world of good.
The highlight of the piece was by far its cast, feeling like true best friends with years of history and memories, and a mention had to be given to Abigail McDonald’s Orla drunkenly begging for chips, sadly one of the only comedy moments that pays off with the audience. The cast members work well as a team, making scene changes seamlessly even if the script side feels somewhat jumpy.
After the Fact, whilst having a strong cast, lacks any true substance, relying too much on one plot line and almost obliterating the other, but does have the groundwork for what could be a good show through more development.
★★
Written by Kerry for Theatre and Tonic, August 2026.