Review: Lost Atoms at Liverpool Playhouse

“…full of feeling, movement and moments that stay with you long after the lights go down…”

Lost Atoms by Anna Jordan, Liverpool Playhouse

By Abi Kelly

Trigger warnings for this production – Pregnancy loss, brief mention of sexual assault and depression.

Frantic Assembly have always been experts at turning emotion into movement. They’re a company known for their physical-style theatre that makes you feel before you even start thinking about why. With Lost Atoms, their latest production, they’ve created something that feels both delicate and explosive, a show that explores how memories shift and fade when we try to hold on to them.

The story follows Jess and Robbie, a young couple trying to make sense of their relationship after a loss. What we see are scattered fragments of their shared past: moments of love, frustration and grief, interrupted by scenes in the present where they try to piece those memories back together. The result is a mix of movement, sound and storytelling that constantly moves between what happened and what they remember happening.

Lighting and sound do the heavy lifting here, whilst making it look easy. A quick change in tone or colour is enough each time to tell us whether we’re inside a memory or standing outside of it. At first, the structure feels scattered, purposefully so, but as it goes on, the fragments start to click. By the end, we’re left with two people trying to remember who they were together and what’s been lost along the way.

Directed by Scott Graham, Lost Atoms carries all the hallmarks of Frantic Assembly’s style: movement that’s beautifully choreographed, but never polished to the point of losing its soul. Every gesture feels meaningful. Joe Layton (Robbie) and Hannah Sinclair Robinson (Jess) bring real honesty and vulnerability to their performances. Their physical connection on stage tells us as much about their relationship as their words do, the way they reach out, hesitate, or fall into each other’s space says everything about love and distance.

The set, designed by Andrzej Goulding, is striking from the moment the curtain rises. It’s a towering wall of drawers, part memory bank, part obstacle course. At first, it looks solid and still, but it quickly becomes a living part of the story. Drawers open to reveal fragments of the past: props, objects, tiny ghosts of moments. Some become footholds for the actors to climb or balance on. A central platform rises and falls, shifting the energy of the space – a perfect metaphor for the instability of memory itself, steady one moment, tucked away the next.

Visually, the show is always engaging. There’s plenty for the audience to unpack and the writing has a natural flow that keeps things grounded, even as the structure flashes between timelines. The second act does lose a bit of momentum – the breaks between memory and present become less frequent and the storytelling feels more linear – but the final scenes bring back the emotional clarity that makes the first half so strong.

Lost Atoms will stick with you because of the way it turns movement into emotional language. It’s a performance that remind us sometimes words just aren’t enough for expression, that one look, one reach, one collapse, can say everything.

Frantic Assembly prove once again why they’re one of the UK’s most exciting theatre companies, with a show that goes beyond words full of feeling, movement and moments that stay with you long after the lights go down.

Lost Atoms plays at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 18 October. Tickets are available here.

Abi Kelly is a writer and theatre enthusiast who has studied both Drama and Scriptwriting. A lover of weird and wonderful stories, she’s usually found at home with a book in hand or deep in a theatre seat.