Live Table Read: Far Away, So Close by Andy Moseley

Far Away, So Close by Andy Moseley

Nick Bellamy was the golden child, living in Japan working for an international law firm when the 2011 Tsunami hit. He was one of many people missing presumed dead, leaving his family and fiancée to imagine what the future would have held for him. Seven years later, only his mother, Andrea, holds out any hope he is alive because admitting he’s dead is a step she can't take.

She celebrates his birthday every year, drinking a toast to him at the time he was born and insisting his brother, sister, father and fiancée do the same. In contrast, his father, Robert, commemorates Nick’s life with an annual fundraising event on the anniversary of the Tsunami. For him, Nick has to be dead, because if he was still alive it would call into question everything he believes to be true about his golden child.

Seven years after the Tsunami, as Andrea discovers that Robert is going to start formal proceedings to have Nick declared dead, she decides to make a last attempt to find him. While their youngest son, Simon, actively supports her, their daughter Catherine, sides with her father.

Neither of them expects the search to lead anywhere until a message is received from someone claiming to be in contact with Nick. It turns out to be Nick himself. He returns home and wants to start again. He imagines it’s possible. He doesn’t realise how much damage he caused when he disappeared. He doesn’t realise that not everyone will be willing to forgive him. He doesn’t realise that, by being alive, everything they thought they knew about him has changed and he is not the person they thought he was.

As the truth emerges about why he faked his death, they have to question whether they were part of the reason he did it and deal with the secrets that now emerge.  Hanging over them, and Nick is the uncomfortable truth that it may have been better if he had remained dead for them.

The script explores upsetting topics of missing family members as a result of a natural disaster and the aftermath. It also explores mental health issues with references to suicide.

CAST

ANDREA BELLAMY: Jeanette Rourke 

ROBERT BELLAMY: Alex Granville 

SIMON BELLAMY: Toby Baddeley

CATHERINE BELLAMY: Karen Barredo 

CLAIRE MARCUS: Isobella Fordham 

NICK BELLAMY: Andy Apollo 

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