Theatre review: Flowering Cherry

According to the Finborough's publicity, when Flowering Cherry premiered in 1957 it was called a British Death of a Salesman, and there are certainly parallels to be drawn. Robert Bolt's Willy Loman figure is Jim Cherry (Liam McKenna,) at one time a travelling insurance salesman who, despite his dislike for the job and actual undisguised contempt for the customers, was good enough at it to be promoted to management. This office job hasn't been as much of a success though, and between frustration and fear of being sacked, he starts to claim he's resigned. Always a compulsive liar and a fantasist, he retreats into a long-held dream of selling up and returning to his native Somerset to start an apple orchard. It's left to his long-suffering wife Bel (Catherine Kanter) and their children to try and find the truth in what he tells them, and figure out what kind of future they actually have.

Theatre review: The White Carnation

Not actually a play about evaporated milk, The White Carnation sees the Finborough Theatre find another seasonally-appropriate show from the archives - this time a Christmas ghost story. Although we're not really in for thrills and chills here because the ghost is the central character, and his behaviour is resolutely non-spooky. John Greenwood was a wealthy stockbroker, killed along with his wife and friends by a German bomb during a Christmas Eve party. For the next six years the ruins of his townhouse are haunted by the party being played out again every December 24th, but on the seventh year they don't all disappear at midnight: Greenwood (Aden Gillett) is left behind, believing no time to have passed, and wondering why the police are accusing him of breaking into his own house. He still has a physical body but like the flower in his buttonhole he doesn't age, and he doesn't show up in photos.