RevIew: Darkling, Bush Theatre ★★★★

It is all too easy to look away when disaster hits our screens. It might be too far away or the impacts too hard to understand. Darkling, a Bush Theatre and Actors Touring Company co-production by Titas Halder aims to tell the story of the 1984 Bhopal chemical leak, “India’s Chernobyl”, which exposed over half a million to 40 leaked tonnes of methyl isocyanate. It does this through the eyes of “she”, a fictionalised everywoman played by Linnea Berthelsen of Stranger Things fame in her UK stage debut. By introducing us to an intimate, individual account, it requires the audience to sit with the pain of the story. We are not given the opportunity to avert our eyes.

We meet “she” before she is eight when she loves her home of blue skies and lakes and she is fussed all over by the women in the street. She has her stray cat friend Sandesh and a neighbour teaching her to make roti. In the distance, a skeleton giant begins to form which will eventually become the factory that disfigures her town forever. In these early scenes, Berthelsen’s playful energy as she bounces around the stage and tells us of her dream to own an electric fan in a high voice fit the optimistic young child well. She has a flair for child-like storytelling with punchlines like “tic tacs” delivered with verve and drawing a laugh each time.

As she ages though, she returns from a stint in the city and realises her home is shit. In fact, it is goat shit, cow shit and human shit. She realises that not every “uncle” is to be trusted and that not every door is open to someone of her gender and her caste. Her skin is darker than her sister’s and this will lessen her chances, too. She sees the white men standing around the factory and the browning of the village drinking water. It becomes clear that the factory is not a benevolent giant looking over the village and nor is it, as some in the village hope, going to be a fantastic employer with a miracle product. As all these things happen, Berthelsen’s register could have begun to drop lower toward the vocal tone we hear her use in Stranger Things or in interviews. This would underline her increasing maturity.

Some of the most appealing scenes are when she falls in love with a cricket-loving, wonky-eyed boy. These scenes are where Berthelsen best differentiates between the two characters she is playing. In some other scenes, who is who can become a little muddied. Some scenes are also played almost exclusively to one side of the theatre or the other. Our side got all the scenes at the water point whereas the other side were delivered the scenes with her sister’s husband.

The lighting (Rajiv Pattani) potently underlines each mood or story. It is especially clever on the train where it gives both a sense of what “she” is passing (Green. Green. Green and Green). The factory projection is initially striking in muddied brown colours with bold beams and shadows but it would have been even more effective as “she” tells us that the factory has become a behemoth with great barrelled towers if the factory projection we were shown also became gradually more busy and overwhelming. Sound and music too (Beth Duke; Niraj Chag) add an extra depth to the emotion, especially the moving clock as she ages and the underlying, inescapble screams when disaster strikes.

The central purpose of this play is to expose us to the horror of the Bhopal disaster and when we get there it is a necessary brutal experience. Frightened crowds panic, people are blinded, many die. The staging of the gas leak is exquisitely beautiful in its ghastliness with drifting poisonous gas wafting from every part of the stage in wispy trails of terror. In the middle of this, Berthelsen loses a baby, which she portrays with raw devastation.

The play is careful not to end too early. Because this was not a one day disaster. In Bhopal today, a third generation of affected children is being born with a much higher than average level of congenital disabilities. The Bhopal Medical Appeal estimates 100,000 people are still regularly exposed to contaminated water. Years after the leak, we witness Berthelsen’s pain again as she loses another baby, born a twisted mass. This is exposing and difficult acting and it takes bravery to perform something so intimately agonising twice per show. The distress of some audience members could be heard plainly.

Darkling shows us this story through the eyes of a child and then a woman. While fictitious, it takes the Bhopal disaster from an abstract news story to a lived experience we can imagine in the way that only theatre can. It does not let Bhopal be ignored.

Images: Alex Brenner

[Thank you to the Bush Theatre for a gifted ticket for an honest review.]

Tour Dates:

5 September – 24 October 2026: Bush Theatre, Shepherd’s Bush, London — 7.30pm, 2.30pm matinees on selected dates
30–31 October 2026: Birmingham Rep, Birmingham
3–4 November 2026: The North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
11–14 November 2026: HOME, Manchester

AGE GUIDANCE: 14+

Content Warning:

Darkling contains descriptions and depictions of pregnancy loss, death, violence and sexual abuse, alongside its central themes of racism, casteism, corporate negligence and environmental devastation. There are also loud noises, flashing lights and haze effects. The Bush Theatre’s full self-care guide and content warnings are available here.

1969 Union Carbide builds the Bhopal plant.
2–3 December 1984 A tank breach releases 40 tonnes of gas, exposing over half a million people.
1989 Union Carbide settles with India for $470 million.
2010 Seven former UCIL executives are convicted of negligence.
1 January 2025 The last of the toxic waste finally leaves the site for disposal, 40 years on.

Recent reviews: