Theatre review: No Villain

The Finborough must be kicking themselves to have missed this one, not only a forgotten play by one of the 20th century's great dramatists but his first, and never previously staged to boot. Arthur Miller wrote No Villain at university - in six days - because he was broke, and the Avery Hopwood playwrighting award offered a $250 top prize. He won the award and the money, but evidently the competition didn't actually extend to producing the winning script, and it got filed away. As Miller went on to become a celebrated playwright the existence of No Villain doesn't seem to have been much of a secret - director Sean Turner found mention of it in Miller's published memoirs, which is where his interest was piqued. But as it's a common phenomenon for a prolific writer's best-known plays to be revived constantly while others gather dust, I'm not entirely surprised that nobody before Turner had actually bothered to seek out a copy and see if it was worth staging.

Theatre review: The Hard Man

About as big a contrast as you could ask for with the French Riviera exploits it shares a stage with, the Finborough's current alternate show takes us to a Scottish prison cell in the 1970s. One of the writers of The Hard Man, Jimmy Boyle, was still in jail when it was first produced, and when he collaborated with playwright Tom McGrath on what is clearly an autobiographical story. Johnny Byrne (Martin Docherty) narrates the first act from his prison cell, as he goes over his teenage years. Growing up with no prospects, he and his friends Bandit (Adam Harley) and Slugger (Jack McMillan) graduate quickly from petty theft to catching the eye of a local criminal who offers them jobs in his illegal after-hours bars. By the time they're 16 they're well into Glasgow's underworld and Johnny in particular thinks they've outgrown their henchman roles and should be running things - he's also acquired a liking to marking anyone who crosses him by slashing their face with a straight-razor.