“Black Hole Sign”, Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Mark Brown on Clydeside
24 September 2025
★★★★

Uma Nada-Rajah is a graduate of the young writers’ programmes of two of the UK’s leading new writing theatres (namely, the Royal Court, London and the Traverse, Edinburgh). She is also a practising critical care nurse who works in the Scottish NHS.

Beruce Khan and Martin Docherty.
Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic.

These seemingly distinct career paths converge in her latest work, Black Hole Sign. A co-production between Glasgow’s Tron Theatre and the Traverse (in association with the National Theatre of Scotland), the piece is set in an over-stretched critical care ward in a Scottish hospital.

As was proved by her previous drama, The Great Replacement (which was produced by Glasgow’s lunchtime theatre A Play, a Pie and a Pint in 2023), the writer is possessed of a keen, often dark political wit. Her new play is a fruitful combination of her talent for timely comedy and her medical experience (which, in researching the piece, she supplemented with interviews with other NHS workers).

The “black hole sign” of the drama’s title refers, primarily, to the shadowy image in the brain scan of Mr Iain Hopper (Beruce Khan). It is the basis for a truly devastating prognosis.

However, the title also makes reference to the literal hole in the ward’s ceiling. This symbolic cavity grows ever larger and more hazardous as charge nurse Crea (Helen Logan) awaits repair by the tardy private contractors who have replaced the hospital’s in-house estates management team.

She – and we, the audience – also await the decision of the disciplinary panel of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which has convened to consider Crea’s conduct in a case of avoidable death. The drama – which is punctuated by moments in which nurses answer questions from the appropriately disembodied voice of the head of the NMC panel – plays out the fateful events that led to the hearing.

The beauty of this thoughtful and humane work is that it depicts, with striking believability, the myriad pressures – of underfunding, under-staffing and multiple and varied critical care needs – that can bring an NHS ward to breaking point. Memories of the Covid-19 pandemic – during which nurse Ani (Dani Heron) lost her father, who died alone on a hospital ward – also loom large.

This may not seem like a basis for comedy, but the play is peppered with moments of bleak humour. A case in point is the character of Mr Turnbull (played by Martin Docherty, who also doubles as hospital porter Billy), a middle-class gent of a Farageist disposition (both towards the NHS and migrants) who arrives on the ward with (no spoilers) a decidedly comic injury.

Director Gareth Nicholls’s production – which enjoys a convincing and responsive set (by Anna Orton) and well-attuned lighting (by Lizzie Powell) – changes gears perfectly as required by Nada-Rajah’s beautifully calibrated script.

At Tuesday night’s press performance, the universally superb cast (which is completed by Betty Valencia and Ann Louise Ross) coped marvellously with a disruption to the performance caused by (what else?) a medical emergency in the audience. The afflicted patron was, glad to report, soon declared fine, following the care of a fellow theatregoer who is, of course, a nurse.

The drama off-stage was considerably more straightforward than that on it. Black Hole Sign is an intelligently complex play that bears often funny, incisive witness to both the remarkable work of NHS staff and the precarious condition of Britain’s most beloved institution.

At Tron Theatre, Glasgow until 4 October, transferring to Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 8-18 October: https://www.tron.co.uk