“It was never about the Reich or the war.

It was about physics.”

By Katherine Moar Directed by Stephen Unwin 

Based on a remarkable true story. Summer 1945. Hitler is dead, but the war in the Pacific rages on.

When six of Germany’s top nuclear scientists - including three Nobel Prize winners - are detained by the Allied forces at Farm Hall, a country house in the Cambridge countryside, they find themselves shut off from the outside world. Their entertainment? Some redacted newspapers, a broken piano and a copy of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit. But as the months go by, their attention turns to the ongoing war and thoughts of their broken homeland.

The scientists' tranquil summer is shattered by the inconceivable news that the Americans have succeeded where the Germans have failed, that the United States has not only built an atomic bomb, but has used one against Japan...

Unbeknownst to the scientists, during their stay, every inch of Farm Hall was bugged and their every action recorded. This play is inspired by the true events that took place at Farm Hall between July 1945 and January 1946

★★★★ 

“Thoroughly absorbing… A strong ensemble" 

-The Times

★★★★ 

“Riveting wartime thriller… quietly searing performances"

 -The Guardian