Sheffield Theatres – At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Catching up (Part 7)

July 2021

Out West – The Overseas Student – Blue Water and Cold and Fresh – Go, Girl – Lyric Hammersmith – 7^th July – *****

Rachel O’Riordan, the AD at the Lyric Hammersmith, might be as good if not better at programming plays as she is directing herself. And she is a mighty fine director. There has been no duds at the LH under her tenure and the current season, once again, is the equal of anything else in London. New plays, updated classics, revivals of lesser known works by contemporary greats, established and upcoming directors, deft casting, everything fits into place. The Tourist can vouch for Frantic Assembly’s Othello currently showing, and the forthcoming hilarious Accidental Death of an Anarchist which he had the very good fortune to catch at its open in Sheffield. And he has high hopes for the Nina Segal adaptation of Brecht’s Good Person of Szechwan also on loan from the City of Steel (pound for pound still the best place to catch theatre outside the Smoke).

Here was another great example. Three top drawer playwrights, Tanika Gupta, Simon Stephens and Roy Williams, all closely associated with the LH, contributed three new monologues, with very different styles , subjects and structures but all, one way or another, confronting questions of race, identity and belonging. Just the ticket for the post pandemic opening,

R O’R shared directing duties with Diane Page the 2021 JMK Award winner 9who then went on to, bravely, stage Athol Fugard’s Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act at the Orange Tree, of which more in a future post. Soutra Gilmour designed the common wooden ziggurat set, sound and composition came from Simon Slater and lighting was delivered by Jessica Hung Han Yun (who, at least when it comes to colour play, might just be the hottest designer around right now).

Tanika Gupta’s The Overseas Student reimagines Gandhi’s formative student years in Victorian England with Esh Alladi utterly convincing. Gandhi arrives with his own privilege, dressed for the Englishman part, and taking to English society and women with cheery gusto, even if he can’t find any vegetarian food. But he is still an outsider, the victim of not so casual racism, enduring prolonged spells of loneliness. TG’s script is more description than drama, and just a tad over-extended, but it still captivates. And scrupulously points out just how the economic exploitation of India, which powered Victorian capitalism, was constructed. Fuel for the Mahatma’s emerging consciousness.

Simon Stephens’ Blue Water and Cold and Fresh, was inspired by a series of conversations with collaborator Emmanuella Cole (who, wisely out turns out, jumped ship from the dreadful McKellen/Mathias Hamlet). Tom Mothersdale plays history teacher Jack addressing his late racist father, who, in the chilling denouement, simply could not hide his hatred of Jack’s black partner. As with SS’s Sea Wall monologue there is a degree of circumspect ambiguity at first, which suits TM’s earnest style perfectly, but this allows the tension to build as Jack vents his rage on his father and on his own white male privilege.

BD, who was pleased to come along for the ride, was most taken with Roy Williams’ Go, Girl however, a celebratory story of Black female empowerment and everyday heroism. RW is just really good at writing immediate dialogue for powerful characters. Ayesha Antoine plays Donna, a security guard and proud single Mum, funny, sassy, positive, who picks a beef with a contemporary at school, who is now a famous photographer, who Donna feels misrepresented the day her class met Michele Obama. But just when we look for conflict RW deftly swerves into a feel-good story about Donna and her daughter. It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom see.

Turner’s Modern World – Tate Britain – 4^th July – *****

Unsurprisingly the Tate was able to wheel out the big guns for this blockbuster. After all the great man himself bequeathed his work to the nation (after a bit of a tussle over the will I gather). It remains the biggest ever donation to the National Gallery though most of the permanent displays are now in the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain itself. A few choice loans, (with one notable exception), as well as work from his contemporaries and a detailed timeline, created a completist fever dream of JWMT’s engagement with a changing world. Admittedly the idea, political and technological advances, forged from the white heat of Enlightenment, could be stretched to include just about anything with so prolific, and reclusive, an artist, but, hey it’s Turner, so who cares. There are stark messages, not least in the painting most conspicuous by its absence, but it isn’t always clear if JWMT was driven by political conscience or artistic licence.

Mind you Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), which was too frail to be transported from Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is horrifying even in reproduction. Slavery might, by 1840, have been, at least in legal theory, abolished, but JWMT still determined to show the evil of the Zong massacre from 60 years earlier. 130 slaves were thrown overboard to save on water. The slave owners made an insurance claim on their “cargo”. The law and a jury found for the slavers though this was overturned by the Court of Appeal and the case, albeit slowly at first, fuelled the abolitionist cause. Of course the irony is that JWMT was himself an investor in a plantation and there is no clear evidence that this was his apology.

Whilst there is much to be gained from understanding the context and content of Turner’s paintings and drawings, which we, BUD, KCK and the SO, very much did, ultimately this bad boy is all about the light. Obviously he had most fun when sea, smoke, spray, clouds, fire, sunrise or sunset were on the agenda, and it is the famous, large, almost abstract, canvases that still wow the most, let us call it the Turner reverie. But the Tourist has a fondness for the more smaller, less Sturm und Drang landscapes, especially those captured in watercolour. Not too many make the cut here given the exhibition’s dubious concept but there was still more than enough of interest.

Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint – British Museum – 20^th July – ****

Had been keen to get along to this after it re-opened and finally managed to carve out a suitable slot for MS, who else, and I to make the pilgrimage (see what I did there). Our interest was primarily historical and cultural; TB’s murder and its subsequent impact across the Christian world was a big deal, but we were unprepared for the some of the aesthetic beauties revealed herein. 29th December 1170, 4 knights, under instruction from Henry II, raid Canterbury Cathedral and, not entirely intentionally, hack to death its uppity Archbishop incumbent. TB, born to a middling family, became Henry II’s chief confidante after a meteoric rise but, after he was surprisingly installed as England’s chief cleric, they fell out big time. TB sought to assert the primacy of the Church, and its ecclesiastical privileges, over the Crown. Cue exiles, legal wranglings, appeals to Rome, the murder, sainthood, which suited the Pope, just 3 years later, and a martyrdom that resonated loudly across the centuries, through the Reformation, even to this day, despite Henry VIII doing his best to erase TB’s legend. (Note to a future, albeit unlikely, King Henry. Beware a PM called Tom from humble beginnings).

The celebrity cult, for that is what it become as TB was ascribed miraculous, and, for the seller, profitable, powers, was the, often gruesome, inspiration for exquisite stained glass (notably four segments from Canterbury itself), illuminated manuscripts (including the Alfege Psalter from Corpus Christi Cambridge) and, especially, reliquary caskets, which the curators have painstakingly assembled. If you like, and we most certainly do, the Medieval art that preceded the “Renaissance”, you would have loved this. If you are a history buff you would have loved this. If you are interested in how “culture” is formed and spreads, in an era before the printing press, you would have loved this. And if all you care about is picture book stories, including a miraculous knob restoration for one Eilward thanks to TB, and why not, then take your pick.

It’s not like the exhibition rams all this down your throat but in the relatively confined space (one of the reasons I like the exhibitions here), lucid text and multiple visual cues combine making for short and sharp, but nonetheless, deep, learning. The Church came out victorious in this clash of authority with Henry II having to make very public penance but what is also clear is how much the people venerated TB, not just because of the injustice of his gory end, but also as a symbol of their ultimate authority over their rulers. Remember it is pilgrims on the way to TB’s shrine which brought out the best in one G. Chaucer.

As is happens consent and co-operation in rural England in the Late Middle Ages system of justice is MS’s specialism so Dad was able to annoy with a few numpty questions. Hard then to think of a more magical trip out.

Best of the rest

BD was chaperone for the other events of note this month. A couple of exhibitions. And a comedy caper.

Mohamed Bourouissa‘s ungainly titled HARa!!!!!!hAaaRAAAAA!!!!!hHAaA!!! at Goldsmiths CCA (****). M. Bourouissa is an Algerian artist now based in Paris who uses photography, video, sound and other media to create installations which explore power relationships in contemporary societies with more than a nod to art history. Telegraph readers look away now. Plainly a very clever chap he claims his art is not political. Well if so I would love to see what he would get up to if he took an activist turn. By immersing himself in the marginalised communities he describes he makes telling points about capitalism and exchange, history and colonial legacy, identity, race and inequality within the context of arresting ideas and imagery. Horse Day from 2014 tells the story of a Black community in North Philadelphia where M. Bourouissa orchestrated and documented a kind of urban horse fair. The exhibition title references the call drug dealers’ lookouts make in Marseilles to warn of any approaching police presence, which M. Bourouissa has turned into a burst of distorted sound. Temps Mort (2008) tracks the artist’s lyrical smartphone exchanges with an incarcerated friend, Peripheries (2006) recasts Parisian banlieue street life post the 2005 riots into Delacroix-esque posed tableaux, Shoplifters (2014) shows the demeaning photos a NYC shopkeeper took in return for not reporting the subjects to the police . You get the picture. Except you won’t if you never see it.

James Barnor: Accra/London: A Retrospective at the Serpentine Galleries North (****) surveyed the British-Ghanaian’s studio portraiture, photojournalism and editorial commissions over six decades to build a picture of cultural life in Accra and African diaspora London pre and post independence. No little glamour on show as well to set alongside the social commentary.

The Three Musketeers: A Comedy Adventure from physical theatre company Le Navet Bete at the Rose Kingston (***) wasn’t particularly surprising or innovative as the genre goes but if you want something easy on the old noggin with plenty of chuckles if not bellyaches, then this is just the ticket. There is a joy in physical comedy theatre that stems not just from story, performance and spectacle but from seeing how a team of, in this case four, talents combine text, set, props, movement and, notably, timing to create an entertainment. Nick Bunt, Al Dunn and Matt Freeman are the founders of LNB (based in at the Northcott in Exeter – yeh!!) and here they have combined with John Nicholson from peers Peepolykus (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary). There have a few shows touring as we speak, Treasure Island, Dracula, Extravaganza, so if they come your way don’t hesitate. If only to support those who put more in than they take out, what with all the education outreach work they do, and plainly toil for love and pleasure and not for money.

The Last King of Scotland at the Sheffield Crucible review *****

The Last King of Scotland

Crucible Sheffield, 28th September 2019

The Tourist generally agrees with all those smart people paid to review theatrical productions. That is a) because they now what they are doing, they are experts with experience and should be listened to, rather than some halfwit with his/her half baked opinions on social media, and b) because, and this is a subset of a), those professional opinions will inevitably influence the ever reflexive Tourist even if he waits until after he has seen an entertainment before passing comment.

Sometimes though I just think they are wrong. With The Last King of Scotland being a case in point. To be fair it did get some decent reviews in the local and specialist theatre press but the broadsheets gave it a pasting. And I cannot, for the life of me, see why. The elements of stagecraft used to convey the story were resoundingly successful in my view and any criticism focussed on the characters, most specifically Doctor Nicholas Garrigan, is misplaced. Why the fictional good Scottish doctor ended up tending the monster Idi Amin is an enigma, not answered in Giles Foden’s book, nor in this adaptation from Steve Waters. Is it fear? Is it professional pride? Is it love? We never know and that is exactly why the story is so compelling in my view.

Now I am a big fan of both book and the film 2006 film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, who also oversaw the film of Touching the Void, taken from a very fine book which itself is the current subject of an excellent theatrical make-over courtesy of David Greig. Who in turn is responsible for another current play of a film(s) of a book in the form of Solaris at the Lyric Hammersmith. The screenplay for TLKOS was penned by Jeremy Brock and no less than Peter Morgan, whose sumptuous magnum opus The Crown you may have heard of and is just about to return to our screens complete with its new roster of A list actors. Note that the Tourist and the SO last night took in Lungs at the Old Vic starring the outgoing Queen Liz and Phil the Greek in Claire Foy and Matt Smith. It’s a small world this drama lark.

Anyway the film deservedly earned Forrest Whittaker an Oscar for his portrayal of Idi Amin Dada Oumee and plenty of praise for the lovely James McAvoy, soon due to grace the London stage in Cyrano. No less than Gillian Anderson and David Oyelowo starred alongside them, but for me the best performance came from Simon McBurney OBE who played Stone, the jaded Foreign Office flunkey who attempts to recruit Garrigan to the British cause as they switch tracks and watch on helplessly as Amin rises to power. I always assume Mr McBurney takes on these film roles to fund his day job as one of the planet’s greatest theatre makers through his company Complicite, but he is never less than compelling even in the likes of Harry Potter or Mission Impossible.

In this stage adaptation however it is hard to take your eyes off Tobi Bamtefa who plays Amin, from the coup in Uganda which overthrew the repressive regime of Milton Obote in 1971 through to his deposal in 1979 and the return of Obote and civil war. Mr Bamtefa was a member of the original Barber Shop Chronicles cast and had a small part in Lee Hall’s adaptation of Network at the NT, as well as a few TV roles, and he is set to join the cast of Inua Ellams’s Three Sisters, set in Nigeria and coming up at the NT. But this was his first major stage opportunity I believe and he grabbed it with both ample hands. The character of the imposing, capricious Amin comes with audience preconceptions, (at least those old enough or interested enough to know something of the history), but, for me, Tobi Bamtefa was utterly convincing. Impossible to take your eyes off him as he turns from briskly comic to bizarrely cruel in an instant. Which is exactly as it should be. The scenes between him and Daniel Portman’s Garrigan were electric, from the early encounter when the doctor fixes Amin’s hand all the way through to full blown bedroom meltdown at the end. Adventure, idealism, influence, fear, fascination, love are all a part of why Garrigan stays long after, morally, he should have escaped. And, like all evil tyrants, Amin exerts a powerful charisma alongside brutal, erratic power. That is the warning from history which the play delivers.

Although the two leads dominate there are strong supporting performances from Akuc Boc as Kay Amin and Joyce Omotola as his other wife Malyam, as well as John Omole as Peter Mbalu-Mukasa, Garrigan’s doctor colleague and Kay’s lover. The scene where Garrigan refuses to perform and abortion for the couple, despite knowing the consequences for them should Amin find out, is riveting. Baker Mukasa plays Jonah Wasswa, the Minister of Health and eventually just about everything else, George Eggay the Archbishop who defies Amin and Hussina Raja is, amongst other roles, Pritti, a Ugandan Asia who takes on Amin at the time of the expulsion. Peter Hamilton Dyer is Perkins the hapless ambassador, Eva-Jane Willis his inhibited wife who rebuffs Garrigan’s advances and Mark Oosterveen plays Stone, here linked to the secret services.

Last King of Scotland aficionados will see that the plot here is much closer to book than film, which latter took a few liberties with Giles Foden’s original events and characters. To be fair, with its fictional TV clips with three recurring journalists (local, UK and US) to provide historical exposition, these events do move on at a fair lick which perhaps overly accelerates Amin’s descent from national saviour into crazed murderer. This, together with Garrigan’s, deliberate, passivity, might frustrate some viewers but it worked for me. Gbolahan Obisesan’s direction, (whose adaptation of Chigozie Obioma’s novel The Fisherman is well worth seeing), doesn’t try to resolve this equivocation which makes the central message even more disturbing. It is pretty easy to think that, confronted with such atrocity, we would walk away if we could but, more often that not, the reality is we wouldn’t, instead choosing to become complicit in the horror.

There are plenty of memorable scenes visually, facilitated by Rebecca Brower colourful set and costume designs, Sally Ferguson’s lighting and Donato Wharton’s sound, even if sometimes the spacious Crucible stage swallows up the action. The film’s infamous meat hook scene is here eschewed but the horror is still effectively conveyed with a grisly scene near the end. Theatre cannot of course convey the immensity of such horror but it can, think Macbeth, Titus Andronicus or Richard III, try to get inside the mind of the man who presides over it. The Last King of Scotland doesn’t get anywhere close to this, that would be too much to ask, but as a slice of theatre, and history, with a moral message, this definitely worked.

My top ten theatre shows of 2018 … and top ten to look forward to

Right even by the standards of the drivel that the Tourist usually posts on this site this is an utter waste of your and my time. Weeks too late, built on flaky foundations of understanding and appreciation and precious little use to anyone. Except maybe me that is, as an aide memoire. You can find my thoughts on these shows elsewhere on this site, if you can be arsed.

I have also appended a list of the top ten plays, so far announced, that I am looking forward to seeing this year in a desperate attempt to beef up the content. Some marginal utility in that maybe. Or maybe not.

BTW you can, and should, see The Lehman Trilogy at the Piccadilly Theatre from May through August. You can, and really should, see Caroline, or Change at the Playhouse Theatre right now. The good people of Edinburgh can see Touching the Void and it will go to Hong Kong, Perth and Inverness before coming back to Bristol. I bet it pops up in London. And, if you are in NYC, and haven’t yet seen Network, jump to it.

Network – National Theatre
John – National Theatre
The Wild Duck – Almeida Theatre
The Lieutenant of Inishmore – Noel Coward Theatre
The Writer – Almeida Theatre
The Lehman Trilogy – National Theatre
Touching the Void – Bristol Old Vic
Julius Caesar – Bridge Theatre
Death of a Salesman – Manchester Royal Exchange
Caroline, or Change – Playhouse Theatre

Near misses? Girls and Boys at the Royal Court, Cheek By Jowl’s Pericles, The Phlebotomist (now coming back to the main stage at Hampstead – do not miss), Nine Night (at Trafalgar Studios from February), Quiz, Love and Information at Sheffield’s Crucible Studio, Copenhagen at Chichester, Henry V from Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, The Jungle (support the two Joes in their plan to put this in front of the Home Secretary !!) and The Madness Of George III at Nottingham Playhouse.

What about this year? Take your pick from these if you trust my judgement. Which would be a surprise. No particular order BTW. There’s a few big tickets missing from this (When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, All About Eve, Betrayal, All My Sons). Like I said it’s what I am most looking forward to.

Sweat – Donmar Warehouse. Too late to get in now except for returns but this may well pop up elsewhere.
Mother Courage and Her Children – Manchester Royal Exchange. Julie Hesmondhalgh as Brecht’s survivor.
A Skull in Connemara – Oldham Coliseum. For my fix of McDonagh.
Cyprus Avenue – Royal Court. Finally I will get to see this.
Medea – Barbican Theatre. Internationaal Theater Amsterdam bring Simon Stone’s Euripides to London with best female actor in the world Marieke Heebink.
Berberian Sound Studio – Donmar Warehouse. How the hell are they going to make this work?
Top Girls – National Theatre. Caryl Churchill. Enough said.
Three Sisters – Almeida Theatre. Best of the Chekhov offerings.
Death of a Salesman – Young Vic. Miller, Elliott, Pierce, Clarke, Kene. Best play of 2019?
Blood Wedding – Young Vic. Lorca given the Farber treatment.

Oh and Antipodes, Annie Baker’s latest. Obviously.

Love and Information at Sheffield Theatres review *****

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Love and Information

Sheffield Crucible Theatre Studio, 7th July 2018

So here was my cunning plan. LD wanted/needed to have a sniff around the University. I spied this revival on the very evening. A chance to have a good look at this fine city. And, though not the original intention, time to watch the England game, (thanks Novotel), whilst LD and the SO had the shops to themselves before they set off back to London.

Love and Information is by Caryl Churchill, the greatest living writer in the English language. She would be the greatest ever if it wasn’t for some long dead geezer from Stratford (upon-Avon not Ontario).

Love and Information was first performed at the Royal Court, (where CC’s plays are normally first presented), in 2012, but despite its relative youth, it has already seen numerous revivals around the world. No surprise there. Like everything she writes it is a work of staggering genius, in terms of dramatic impact, formal invention and intellectual insight. OK so sometimes I have no idea why she chose to show specific scenes and exchanges or what they might “mean”, but that’s all part of the “fun”. It just makes your brain fizz – “my head’s too full of stuff” as one of the characters says early on – indeed. It is exhilarating, if very occasionally frustrating, stuff.

There are seven sections in total whose order is specified by CC. Within these sections however the 57 individual scenes/episodes can be performed in any order. Moreover a random selection of some of these episodes at the end of the text can be inserted wherever the director chooses. There are over 100 characters in all but CC offers no detail as to age/gender/race. And as is typical for CC there are no stage directions or instructions leaving it to director, cast and creatives to decide how they are going to stage the scenes/episodes. So the way in which the relationship between text, performer and audience is constructed and mediated is about as loose as it is possible to get whilst still avoiding the trap of pretentious twaddle.

There are two clear themes: er, Love and Information. Each episode has some moreorless explicit connection with, and/or insight into, these themes, though there is plenty more to chew on besides that, (memory, ageing and ecological crisis pop up for example which also inform most of CC’s recent work) . The effect is of a kaleidoscope of interactions and relationships alongside an essay on the proliferation of “knowledge, both pointless and valuable. We are bombarded with information? How does that affect the way we interact? The structure of the play reflects the very questions it seeks to confront. A philosophical variety show if you will.

Despite the absence of context, identities, names, narrative or indeed any “normal” dramatic anchors CC still manages, often in the space of just a few lines or a couple of minutes to sketch character, to serve up humour, longing, sadness, regret, anger, jealousy, joy, in fact the whole gamut of human emotions. Like so much of CC’s work it is an exercise in distilling drama down to its very essence in order to create lasting impressions and arresting ideas. And all because CC knows how to use words.

The original production used 16 actors. Here Sheffield Theatres associate director Caroline Steinbeis cut this down to just 6. Which means she and her colleagues did a lot of thinking about how to put the scenes together. It also means that some of the scenes were very effectively stitched together, most notably the “children’s TV show” near the end, to create a longer arc of meaning. Max Jones’s set, a bare stage backed by six coloured light boxes, also permitted rapid cutting between the episodes. Costumes, movement (Jenny Ogilvie), lighting (Johanna Town) and sound (the Ringmam brothers yet again) were also carefully considered to create far more concrete settings where abstraction might have been more tempting (and easier). I see that some critics found this more precise and considered technical achievement, (compared to the premiere apparently), somewhat distracting. I loved it, though having not seen a previous production, I knew no better.

I would imagine the cast had a ball putting this together. It is hard to imagine a more challenging, though ultimately satisfying, acting job. So thank you very much Debbie Chazen, Marian McLoughlin, Mercy Ojelade, Ciaran Owens, Ian Redford and Sule Rimi.

And thank you Sheffield Theatres. And Sheffield. But most of all thank you Caryl Churchill.

The York Realist at the Donmar Warehouse review *****

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The York Realist

Donmar Warehouse, 22nd March 2018

Live in Sheffield? Like theatre? Then you must go see this production of the 2001 play, The York Realist, which is on at the Crucible for the next couple of weeks. Live in Sheffield and no interest in the theatre? Even more reason to go. The family at the centre of this play went to see the York Mystery Plays and they were bowled over by it. The same will happen to you if you see this. Cast iron guarantee.

This is the first time I have seen a play from the pen of Peter Gill and I can’t imagine a more sympathetic production. This revival is a co-production between the Donmar and Sheffield Theatres and, if this is what Artistic Director Robert Hastie, serves up to the good people of Sheffield on a regular basis then I might just have to move there. I see there is a production of Caryl Churchill’s epic, by her standards, Love and Information set for early July. I’ve signed up. For those with the attention span of a gnat this is the play for you.

Back to The York Realist. The “York Realist” was, probably, the writer of 8 of the 48 individual plays or pageants which make up the York version of the Medieval Mystery Plays. These were constructed as a way of bringing the Bible stories to the hoi-polloi, both as performers and audience, through the C14, C15 and C16. The 8 plays in question are characterised by the broad, Yorkshire vernacular in the text, lending them an everyday realism. A production of the Mystery Plays is what brings together the protagonists in the play, John and George, in the early 1960s. Peter Gill too has conjured up a completely naturalistic play, over four acts and set entirely in one set, the main room of the tied cottage which agricultural labourer George shares with his unnamed Mother. George’s sister Barbara lives nearby with husband Arthur and son Jack, and nearest neighbour Doreen is a regular visitor.

There is a little formal experimentation in terms of chronology but none of the shenanigans ushered in to British play-writing by the likes of Beckett, Pinter, Osborne, Bond, Churchill and Stoppard. The plays opens with John visiting George after his Mother has died, before we revert to the early days of their relationship. At its heart this is the love story of John and George and it is a very affecting love story indeed, (some parallels with the recent debut film from Francis Lee, God’s Own Country, I gather).

Well-spoken southerner John, a doe-eyed, polite Jonathan Bailey, is the assistant director at the Mystery Plays, (as indeed Peter Gill was in his youth in the 1960s). George is a blunt, muscular, salt of the earth type who can’t commit to sticking with the play. It is hard to imagine anyone else but the excellent Ben Batt playing the part. John has come to persuade him back to the play. Their attraction is obvious from the start and both actors are completely convincing in their relationship. George’s seduction is amusingly direct, John’s coyness easily overcome

Their relationship flounders more on the rocks of class and geography than the reaction of family, who have tacitly accepted George’s sexuality. George feels bound, or maybe chooses, to stay looking after ailing Mother, Downton’s Lesley Nicol, and eventually bows to what seems inevitable by taking up with the humble, attentive Doreen (Katie West), who has been waiting all her life for him despite his identity. With minimal and unforced dialogue, and some very gentle disclosure, we also get to see the ambitions and frustrations of bluff Arthur (Matthew Wilson), indefatigable Barbara (Lucy Black) and Brian Fletcher’s Jack who seems destined, if reluctant, to take up farm labouring.

What is so brilliant about Peter Gill’s writing is the way, within this entirely naturalistic scenario, he draws out the themes he wishes to explore. John’s slightly patronising middle class fascination with the past, the rural and the antique, (though he isn’t prepared to abandon his life and work in London and creature comforts to live in the country), George’s acknowledgement of all that London has to offer but his fear of moving (“I live here”), the denial of identity, the pull of family, gender roles, the allure of self-sacrifice and devotion, the limitations placed on aspiring working class actors, the power of theatre and its appropriation as “high culture”, the inequity of tied farming. None of this is rammed down your throat, and perhaps the biggest dichotomy, the fact that gay relationships were still illegal in the early 1960s, is made more telling by its near absence in the story.

Apparently Peter Gill has a long association with the Donmar as writer and director. Just shows how much I know. I was aware of his guiding hand behind the Riverside Studios in its heyday in the late 1970s and his association with the National Theatre Studio in the 1980s. I see that the new Riverside Studios is close to completion, (passed it on the bus the other day), though I think it will be devoted once again to TV. I only got the bus because I didn’t have time to walk along that part of the Chiswick riverside where Peter Gill lived. That’s one of the joys of culture-vulturism. All the little coincidences and connections.

I can’t imagine Robert Hastie’s direction, Peter McKintosh’s design, Paul Pyant’s lighting and Emma Laxton’s sound being bettered. I do note that some of the proper critics think this has improved on the original production at the Royal Court in 2002. I can tell you it is a very fine play and, if they match this, I hope to see other revivals of Mr Gill’s work. Meanwhile people of Sheffield you know what to do.