Lifeline is the frontline of the fight
Fresh from an off-Broadway run; a history-making performance as the first musical to ever be performed at the United Nations (2024) and two previous sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2018 and 2022 as The Mould That Changed The World), Lifeline now comes to Southwark, writes Michael Holland.
It is 2025 and a patient is bemoaning the ‘Canteen Tea’ in hospital. Aaron (Nathan Salstone) gives a song that sets the scene for him being unwell in two different eras: the present day and approximately a century ago. We traverse those years via the life and work of Alexander Fleming (Alan Vicary), learning about the importance of antibiotics and how medical problems of the 20th century are just as problematic today.
Through song, romance, and a lot of lab-based dialogue, we hear how Fleming, who was a loner in his research, learns how to collaborate better to share knowledge with others around the world working in his field of bacteria and immunology.
While with the RAMC during World War 1, Fleming saw how the antiseptics used to treat infected wounds often made injuries worse. He suffered mentally over the people he could not save rather than rejoice in those he had and became determined to find an answer.
In the present day, our patient is not responding to antibiotics because the bad bacteria are building up a resistance.
Lifeline is a plea to the world’s scientists to work together to fight antimicrobial resistance. One way is to end the pollution of our water that harbours harmful bacteria and provides the perfect setting for becoming strong enough to overcome any antibiotic.
All this horror-story information is woven in with Greek bacteriologist and WW2 resistance fighter, Amalia Voureka (Kelly Glyptis), getting closer to Fleming when they worked together, and our contemporary love-fest involving Jess (Maz McGinlay) and Aaron.
On the way, we are dragged through the trenches in France, lightened only by moments of medical breakthroughs, but all the time tempered with this overwhelming doom-laden disaster on the horizon told with a strong story and strong voices. Alan Vicary treats the role of Alexander Fleming with real TLC – and Penicillin! His wife, Becky, told me before the show that he had come down with a painful gum disease in a true-life spin-off from the show he was rehearsing, and was cured with antibiotics.
It’s difficult not to divert away from the actual production because, in amongst the romance and music that has rock, folk, and some operatic voices in there (accompanied by a tight band that brought out bagpipe and fiddle to add a Scottish touch), it also takes us off into the world of medicine. Perhaps too much. I thought Lifeline was a scene or song too long at times, but this is a production about hope, of a coming together of nations and scientists to fight the bacteria that could devastate the world’s population.
We see it with Covid, and now I fully understand why my GP stresses that I must finish the whole course of tablets and not stop taking them when the symptoms go. And I will join the fight against the evil water companies allowing our water to get polluted while they get rich.
The finale makes it all worthwhile when the chorus of real scientists and top healthcare professionals come on to the stage, one by one, to take a bow and tell us their job in the NHS. A chorus from many countries, all working here to save lives. Here to make the world a better place in the NHS that Farage and his Reform UK want to ruin. Lifeline is the frontline of the fight.
Southwark Playhouse, 1 Dante Place, 80 Newington Butts, London, SE11 4RX until May 2nd.
Booking and full details: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/lifeline/
