'Two Billion Beats' at the Orange Tree Theatre

'Two Billion Beats'

"It’s a production that, whilst intense, is also wickedly funny and humane."

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre. Get directions.

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Our verdict

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Rarely has a play held me so engaged from its opening moments but Sonali Bhattacharyya’s superb, nuanced play about two sisters growing up in Leicester and fighting the injustices of the world large and small on their home turf is a triumph in every respect. 

First seen at the Orange Tree a year ago it returns with a fresh cast to its story of seventeen-year-old Asha, a high-achiever starting to think independently and her younger sister Bettina whose main concerns are simpler, namely avoiding the school bullies and finding herself a hamster.

It’s Bettina who supplies the play’s title, as it allegedly refers to the maximum amount of heartbeats she thinks a person has over a lifetime, endearingly concerned that her own have been dramatically reduced by anxiety.

Elsewhere Asha has been writing an essay on Indian leader B R Ambedkar in which the sacred figure of Gandhi is criticised; she’s beginning to see that, like her mother, the world would rather she accept conventional wisdom rather than truly encourage her to form her own empirical opinion; it’s something that fuels her passionate interior monologues, each signalled by a change in spotlight colour, courtesy of Alex Fernandes’s excellent lighting.

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The first of these immediately captures the attention as Asha literally acts out each thinker’s merits as if they were participants in a boxing match; it’s a visceral energy that resonates throughout the play, seen again to brilliant effect in the dance that the girls enjoy when celebrating Bettina’s fledgling confidence.

The moments they share seem inconsequential- waiting at a bus stop or washing away graffiti in a detention session- but Shala Nyx and Tanvi Virmani are absolutely superb as the two teenage sisters, persuasively conjuring the complexity of a sibling relationship with all its love and attendant irritation.

“I’ve got your back- literally!” cries supportive Bettina, offering Quavers as consolation whilst Asha, with her world-weary seniority, tries to find time alone to work out her essay plans.

But when she finally offers Bettina useful advice to inspire her to fight the bullies it backfires rather unexpectedly, leading to the play’s poignant final scenes. 

The play’s language reflects its teenage protagonists but its heart is timeless, exploring the constructs of the modern world in an engaging and thought-provoking fashion. Skilfully directed by Nimmo Ismail and Tian Brown-Sampson, it’s a production that, whilst intense, is also wickedly funny and humane, exploring rites of passage scenarios with wit and palpable compassion.