NHB Modern Plays A Child of Science

A play about one of the most remarkable medical breakthroughs of our time: the procedure that led to the first 'test-tube baby' and the creation of IVF. 'One day this will work. One day we will gift two honest, decent, trusting volunteers a baby. I know this more than anything else in the world. I know it in my soul. We will do that.' In 1978, three pioneering doctors changed the world of fertility as we know it. Supported by an army of immensely brave women from all over the UK, Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy achieved the impossible: they created human life in vitro. Faced with fierce criticism and hostility, and hounded by the media for 'playing God', trials had to be kept largely under wraps. But the trio's determination to give hope to the thousands of families struggling to conceive eventually led to the first 'test-tube baby' and the creation of IVF, a procedure which has since supported the birth of over twelve million babies worldwide. Gareth Farr's play A Child of Science is a fictionalised account of this true story of ambition and courage, based on extensive research and interviews with embryologists and fertility doctors, as well as those affected by and enabled by IVF. It was first performed at Bristol Old Vic in 2024, directed by Matthew Dunster.