Otherland at the Almeida Theatre review: this play about the trans experience is lively, humane and erratic

Three themes – the needs of a trans woman to live as herself, the pressure on women to reproduce, and the difficulty of entirely accommodating a partner – course through Chris Bush’s lively, humane and erratic play. It’s laced with music and given a fluid production by director Ann Yee. Though dramatically uneven and necessarily inconclusive, it’s very thoughtful, which is welcome in this era of yammering culture-war hatred.

We first see Jo (Jade Anouka) and Harry (Fizz Sinclair) hymned by a female chorus on their wedding day: “They are beautiful; they are *unbearable*.” But the couple’s idyllic relationship falters, then founders, when Harry comes out as trans and Jo, even though she’s “always liked girls”, can’t quite cope. Bush, the prolific Sheffield writer who had a hit with Standing at the Sky’s Edge, describes this “Big Trans Play™” as personal but not autobiographical.