CODE BY HUGH WHITEMORE CAST Alan Turing Detective Mick Ross Sara Turing Dillwyn Knox Patricia Green Ron Miller John Smith Christopher Morcom Nikos Oscar Heron Stephen Liddle Eleanor Shaikh Mike Pennick Lauren Phillipou Joe Hall Oliver Bruce Dean Slade Sam Gould DIRECTED BY OLIVER BRUCE PROGRAMME BREAKING
Alan Turing attended Sherborne School from May 1926 to July 1931. TURING AND CHRISTOPHER MORCOM Alan Turing and his friend Christopher Morcom pictured at Sherborne School, 1926. (With thanks to Sherborne School Archives) Alan arrived for his first day at Sherborne School by bicycle when, because no trains were running due to a rail strike, he cycled the 65 miles from Southampton to Sherborne. School career and friendship with Christopher Morcom During his time at Sherborne School, Alan won many prizes including the Kirby Mathematics Prize for the Lower School (1926), the Lyon Prize for Examination (1927), the Plumptre Mathematical Prize for the Middle School (1928), the Digby Prize for Mathematics and Science (1930, 1931), and the King’s Medal for Mathematics (1931). When he left Sherborne in 1931 he was awarded the Westcott House Goodman Scholarship. Alan and Christopher formed a deep and intellectually powerful friendship, although Christopher never reciprocated Alan’s deep love for him. Christopher died on 13 February 1930 from complications of catching Bovine TB. After Christopher’s funeral, Alan Turing wrote to his mother saying, result of an examination, but to the boy whose year’s work is best reported on by the science teaching staff, taking into consideration general progress, originality and understanding.’ ‘I feel sure that I shall meet Morcom again somewhere & that there will be some work for us to do together, as I believed there was for us to do here. Now that I am left to do it alone. I must not let him down but put as much energy into it, if not as much interest, as if he were still here.’ In 1930, Christopher’s parents founded at Sherborne School the Christopher Morcom Prize, an annual prize for natural science ‘to be awarded, not as a Alan Turing was awarded the Christopher Morcom prize in 1930 (for showing originality in a paper on ‘the reaction of sulphites and iodates in acid solution’) and again in 1931 (for having been awarded an open scholarship at King’s College Cambridge). Other winners of the prize have included Christopher’s nephew John Morcom and Alan Turing’s nephew Dermot Turing. SUICIDE It is accepted that Alan Turing died of cyanide poisoning. His housekeeper famously found him dead in his bed, with a half-eaten apple on his bedside table. It is widely said that Turing had been haunted by the story of the poisoned apple in the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and had resorted to the same desperate measure to end the persecution he was suffering as a result of his homosexuality. Sara Turing put an alternative explanation to the inquest, explaining that he used cyanide in experiments he conducted at at his house and had accidentally ingested it, as he had a habit of tasting the chemicals . The coroner, Mr JAK Ferns, recorded a verdict of suicide "while the balance of his mind was disturbed”. At the inquest, he declared: "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." What he meant by "of his type" is unclear, but we can infer much from his comment. Alan Turing was cremated at Woking Crematorium on 12 June 1954. His ashes were scattered there, just as his father's had been.
When we sat down to review plays to direct, one play stood out from our selection. A play about a real-life legend. We had already known about Alan Turing’s involvement in winning the second world war, his work on modern computing and the treatment he underwent after being arrested for his homosexuality. What did come as something of a surprise to us was finding out just how much of a local chap he was. Although never permanently residing in Guildford, Alan still had many roots in this town and was often visiting his mother near Stoke Park. All these aspects made proposing this play to direct a bit of a no brainer. The true-life story of Alan Turing is almost too unbelievable to be true, and so vastly topical. The topic of AI still rages in the big tech companies today with great advances being made every day. Also, Alan Turing’s name is now synonymous with gay men who have been unfairly prejudiced by our legal system being pardoned. And, of course, there are many people who believe that by cracking the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park, Alan was single-handedly responsible for the allies reaching Berlin and beating Hitler. This is a story that must be told, about a man who did all these things and yet was still a victim of tragedy. All of us who are involved in this production, cast and crew, those who have worked so hard to bring you this story, feel so privileged that we have been able to do so. Oli and Steph. OUR NEXT PRODUCTIONS JULY 17 - 20 JAMAICA INN OPEN AIR AT MERRIST WOOD NOVEMBER 27 - 30 ENTERTAINING ANGELS THE ELECTRIC THEATRE BREAKING THE CODE CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION TEAM Director Oliver Bruce Assistant to the Director Stephanie Bruce Designer Ian Nichols Stage Manager Tina Wareham ASM’S Pru Harrold, Graham Russell-Price Sound and Light Simon Price Prompt Eddie Woolrich Properties Barbara Tresidder Orchestral music arranged, composed and performed by Jason Orbaum Production Manager Michael Burne Set Construction Graham Russell-Price, Michael Burne Marketing and Graphic Design Gilly Fick Photography & Digital Image Design Jonathan Constant Hair and Make-up Guildford College Department of Media Make-up Costumes Chrissy Fryers Transport Graham Russell-Price, Michael Burne Programme Design and Content Gilly Fick NODA was founded in 1899 Membership of over 2,000 groups 1,000 individual members Supports the needs of youth and adult theatre on and off stage Visit the website to join noda.org.uk FORTHCOMING GATA SHOWS Godalming Theatre Group Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - 9th-14th April Surrey Mozart Players Concert - 28th April Guildford Opera Company Aida - 22nd, 24th and 25th May Surrey Mozart Players Pranksters Twelfth Night - 18th-20th July and 25th-27th July GATA is an umbrella organisation Supporting and promoting the interests of amateur theatre and public education in the dramatic arts in and around Guildford. Visit the website gata.org.uk An amateur production in association with Concorde Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French Ltd
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND Although away at school for long periods, Guildford gave Turing his rst proper home and the family would go for long walks in Stoke Park and on the North Downs. He continued to visit the family home whilst studying at King’s College, Cambridge. The statue at the University of Surrey in Guildford was sculpted by John W. Mills, and shows Turing walking across the campus with his books under his arm. It is on display in the campus' main piazza, in front of the computing department, Turing’s parents, Julius and Ethel Sara, moved to 8 Ennismore Avenue, Guildford (now renumbered as 22), following his father’s retirement from the Indian Civil Service in 1927. 10 SEPTEMBER 2009 PRIME MINISTER’S STATEMENT ‘This has been a year of deep re ection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude that characterise the British experience…… I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain's ght against the darkness of dictatorship: that of code-breaker Alan Turing. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of "gross indecency" – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to ghting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, I am very proud to say: we're sorry. You deserved so much better.’ fi flfi fi 23 JUNE 2021 - Turing is commemorated on the new £50 note.
AT BLETCHLEY PARK STILL A MYSTERY Turing and his colleagues worked in unheated huts, so they stuffed the walls with magazines and waste paper -including these notes. Some of the notes pose a mystery even to today's experts, who are unable to work out what they mean. NOTES were found in the roof where British mathematicians and cryptologists raced to break German cyphers. The notes were handwritten by Alan Turing's fellow codebreakers. WARTIME SECURITY RULES DICTATED THAT NOTES HAD TO BE DESTROYED. As a result, this is the only surviving example of a Banbury Sheet -a method of deciphering German messages by comparing two messages with holes punched in them. By placing one message on top of the other and moving it until the holes lined up, the codebreakers could work out the daily settings of the German Enigma machine. The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) recruited men and women for Bletchley Park based on their skills in languages, engineering, science, maths, puzzle-solving and even chess.Bletchley Park was the world's rst purpose-built computing centre, built speci cally to break the Enigma codes and help the Allies win World War. The Enigma Machine used in our production was one of two made for the 2001 lm ‘Enigma’ starring Kate Winslet. The lm was produced by Mick Jagger who made a cameo appearance as an RAF of cer at a dance. He also lent the lm's design department a four-rotor Enigma encoding machine he owned to ensure the historical accuracy of one of the props. fi fi fi fi fi fi WE INVITE YOU TO VIEW THE ENIGMA MACHINE UP CLOSE ON STAGE AT THE CLOSE OF EACH PERFORMANCE
1945 End of the Second World War. The Nuremberg Trials begin in Germany. 1946 The Cold War – Winston Churchill makes his Speech declaring that an Iron Curtain has descended across Europe. 1947 The coal industry is nationalised. Exceptionally harsh winter brings hardship for many. 1948 The SS Windrush docks at Tilbury, from Jamaica. The National Health Service is launched. 1949 Laurence Olivier’s film of Hamlet is the first British film to win a Best Picture Oscar. The term ‘big bang’, to describe a theory about how the cosmos was created, was first used by astronomer Fred Hoyle. 1950 Korean War : The first British troops arrive in Korea. 1951 Soviet spies, Burgess and Maclean, flee Britain. The UK’s first National Park established in the Peak District. 1952 Alan Turing is convicted of ‘gross indecency’. Death of King George VI. London smog kills 4,000 people. 1953 James Watson and Frances Crick determine the doublehelix structure of DNA. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. 1954 Rationing comes to an end. Alan Turing ends his life. 1967 The Sexual Offences Bill decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales. 1980 Decriminalisation in Scotland. 1982 Decriminalisation in Northern Ireland. 2013 Turing is posthumously pardoned. 2017 The ‘Turing Law’ is passed into statute 2021 Turing is commemorated on the new £50 note
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