Gina McKee and the rest of the cast starring in The Years [Ali Wright]

A NEW play showing in Islington had to be stopped for ten minutes during a preview performance on Monday after multiple audience members – most of them men – felt faint and had to leave the room during a graphic backstreet abortion scene.

The Years, first produced in the Netherlands in 2022 and opened to the public in London at the Almeida Theatre this week, is a play that follows one woman’s life against the changing political backdrop of post-war Europe.

As the abortion scene played out during Monday’s performance, one man in the stalls felt faint and had to be helped out of the theatre by staff.

He was followed by several other members of the audience who felt similarly disturbed.

While those theatre-goers regained their strength in the foyer, another audience member seated in the circle above reportedly shouted out that the scene was a “disgrace” and that there had been “no warning”.

The actors themselves rebuffed the heckler, saying that there had in fact been warnings about the abortion scene in the content warning section of the theatre’s website.

The Almeida Theatre

While this warning is not prominently placed, the theatre’s website does indeed tell prospective viewers that the production contains a graphic depiction of an abortion, blood, a coerced sexual encounter and sexual content.

The Years is based on French Nobel prize winner Annie Ernaux’s 2008 autobiography Les Années, and the theatre adaptation, directed by Eline Arbo, features five different actors playing the main woman at different points in her life.

This isn’t the first time audiences have swooned at the sight of what’s on stage. Five people reportedly fainted during a National Theatre production of the play Cleansed during 2016, a story of a university that turned into a totalitarian institution, and 40 people walked out of the show during its opening week.

Audience members similarly walked out of A Little Life, the theatre adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s devastating tome, though it is not known whether anyone lost consciousness due to that performance.

In a statement, the Almeida Theatre said: “The performance on Monday of The Years was stopped for 10 minutes so that our front of house team could provide care for an audience member who required assistance. During the stoppage, care was also provided for three other audience members. All audience members were quick to recover after brief assistance.”

The Years is showing at the Almeida until the end of August.