The Suffolk Free Press review of Value Engineering 

 

Value Engineering, by Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Kent, is running at the Quay Theatre this week (September 9th - 13th). The play dramatizes the Grenfell Tower inquiry, and what examines what contribution the concept of “value engineering”, a term that describes cost cutting measures made during a building’s construction, made to the disaster. The play pulls no punches, and nor should it, given its subject matter. Every aspect of the disaster is examined, scrutinised, and questioned, from the role that cheap insulation played to the spread of the fire, to criticism of the fire service’s response. 

It is a heady subject for a night of theatre, but it is one that Value Engineering’s director, Mike Fahie-Wilson, handles with deft sensitivity. There were none of the trappings of a typical show – no pre-show announcements, no music, no five-minute call. Fahie-Wilson’s commitment to maintaining a naturalistic setting made the play feel less like a piece of theatre, and more like a real inquiry. Fahie-Wilson led the cast in more ways than one, playing the inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who solemnly informs us of the grim task ahead, while also steadying the ship through the inquiry’s more emotional moments. 

With a revolving door of witnesses, both expert and otherwise, every member of Value Engineering’s cast were on top of their game. Neil Arbon and Annie Eddington, who played the inquiry’s counsels, Richard Millett QC and Kate Grange QC, deserve particular praise. Arbon has the lion’s share of the play’s dialogue, and delivers with unruffled authority, tamed with compassion when questioning the disaster’s survivors. Eddington complements this with bulletproof questioning and a sense of righteous fury as various architects, executives and project managers who pass before the inquiry attempt to pass the buck for a disaster that they were all, in some way, to blame for. 

But the main message that Value Engineering implores of its audience is not who is to blame for the Grenfell Tower Disaster, but rather, its human cost. This particularly comes to the fore when firefighter Dave Badillo, played by Darryl Crawley, takes the stand. Badillo tearfully recounts trying to save a thirteen-year old boy, trapped by the flames in the upper floors of the tower. All Badillo remembers, however, are not the many people that he saved, but the ones he could not. 

The night ended with a sincere request from the cast to disobey a theatrical tradition, and not applaud at the play’s conclusion. This was not only due to the recency of the disaster, but also due to the fact that despite an extensive and thorough inquiry, no one connected with the disaster has been prosecuted. Even only eight years on, the Grenfall Tower Disaster has all but faded from the public consciousness. If you do nothing else this week, go and see Value Engineering. Not only for the remembrance of its victims, but as a reminder: things haven’t changed, lessons have not been learned, and one day, this tragedy could happen again.

Matthew Byham