Sunday Arts Magazine

11 Jul 2021

When the Rain Stops Falling

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This July, Theatre Works and Iron Lung Theatre bring Andrew Bovell’s multi award-winning play, When the Rain Stops Falling, to Melbourne.

Starring Francis Greenslade (Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell, Winners and Losers, All Saints) this powerful story spans four generations over eight decades across two countries, between a prediction in London in 1959 and its outcome in Australia eighty years later. Described by Time Magazine as “… the best play of 2010”,When the Rain Stops Falling unfolds like a mesmerising puzzle to be solved.

Alice Springs, 2039. A fish falls from the sky. It’s been raining for days, the apocalypse moves ever closer and Gabriel York know something is wrong. And so begins this epic sprawling drama, where fish fall from the sky, a daughter inherits a secret and where the rain never stops.

Taking place between two worlds, When the Rain Stops Falling reaches from the claustrophobia of a small flat in rainy London in 1959 to the windswept coast of South Australia and beyond, following the journey of Gabriel Law as he retraces his father’s footsteps, desperately attempting to solve the mystery of his disappearance.

“Andrew Bovell has an incredible way of making the everyday reach out and touch us in an extraordinary way. And this play does that…” explains Iron Lung’s Director Briony Dunn.

“It’s vast and complex and weaves a spell on a grand scale from squished London flats to rolling oceans and sweeping deserts, where Bovell uses the weather like a tenth character. What theatre does so well – and this play is a gorgeous example – is it lifts the audience and takes them to that magical realm only plays like this can. In many ways too this play has come into its own. It’s more relevant now than when it was first written in 2008.”