Theatre review: Cornelius

Whenever the Finborough Theatre digs up a play that's languished in obscurity for decades and turns out to be surprisingly good, the natural reaction is to wonder how the work could have remained "lost" for so long. And perhaps the secret of their success is timing: Maybe if this play had been unearthed and staged a few years ago it would have failed to capture anyone's interest. But as with The American Clock, which came to the same theatre earlier this year, J.B. Priestley's Cornelius deals with an earlier economic crisis, and so has unfortunately taken on a relevance to the current one. Written in 1935, it follows the last few weeks in business of a small London company that's dealt in aluminium imports with some success for many decades, but now has the creditors knocking at the door.

Theatre review: The American Clock

In recent years a number of theatres have commissioned new plays looking at the current financial crisis, its causes and historical precedents. True to form, Neil McPherson at the Finborough has instead done some digging to find a theatrical great who'd already written such a play, only for it to fall into obscurity. Arthur Miller's The American Clock was nominated for an Olivier in 1986 but hasn't been seen in London since. Arthur A. Robertson (Patrick Poletti) was a wealthy businessman who predicted the Great Depression, put all his money into gold and managed to hold onto his wealth as a consequence, able to observe the chaos the USA fell into in the 1930s. Robertson acts as narrator, as Miller uses Studs Terkel's book of interviews Hard Times as inspiration to tell the stories of dozens of people who faced financial ruin.