I know I will look back on this day as an old, old man.
There’s a kitchen table.
Another kitchen table. Four chairs. Two bowls stacked neatly in the middle,
spoons. In the darkness, the shuffle of feet, and as the lights rise, we see
Daniel (Leon Ford), stretching against a chair, arms outstretched on its back.
As he starts speaking, we know something’s not right.
“Something is missing,” we are
told in the season book. “The phone is not working, and the kids’ toys are not in
their usual spot under the television. In fact, [Daniel’s] wife and children
seem to have disappeared.” We’re not told how or when, nor even a why; they
just are. Missing, gone, disappeared. As Daniel begins to try to piece it
together, tries to make sense of it, we meet his mother (Gillian Jones) and
later his wife, Sam (Alison Bell), and kids, Charlotte and Harry. This part,
Part One, is strung through with a strong sense of loss and losing, of the
vacuum that exists when the carpet is torn from under your feet and you’re left
struggling to pick up the pieces. And we are never told what happened, why they
are effectively in disparate albeit overlapping places. Part Two begins after a
lengthy (somewhat clunky) interlude of blackout, and is immediately – noticeably
– different for its presence and abundance of activity and life, of its warm
familial feel. Like Part One though, Part Two is also strung through with a
sense of loss or a vacuum (albeit, not as strong as the former), the hole that
exists from not knowing one’s father (or, more specifically, one of your
parents), how you might try and fix that if it is at all possible.
