Theatre review: Variation on a Theme

The latter years of Terence Rattigan's life saw a decline in his popularity as the Kitchen Sink playwrights knocked him out of favour, and Variation on a Theme had a particularly unfortunate part to play in his story: It was the play Shelagh Delaney saw, and was so unimpressed by it propelled her to try and do better herself. Rattigan would eventually, posthumously, reclaim his place on British stages, with his better-known plays getting plenty of major revivals in recent years, but it takes the Finborough to unearth Variation on a Theme again half a century after it was last seen. And with the play Delaney wrote in response, A Taste of Honey, enjoying a major revival at the National right now, what better time to reevaluate whether Rattigan's offering deserves its ignominious place in history.

Theatre review: A Clockwork Orange (Action To The Word/Soho)

Certain shows you expect to have multiple London productions in a year, but they tend to be your Shakespeares and Chekhovs. Anthony Burgess' own stage adaptation of his most famous book, A Clockwork Orange, would seem less likely. But following a production at the Arcola earlier in the year that I wasn't convinced by, Action To The Word's Edinburgh hit rocks up at Soho Theatre as an unlikely Christmas offering. Burgess' notes for the 1986 adaptation are rather bizarre, and his apparent lack of enthusiasm for the project makes it unsurprising it originally flopped. Having knocked out the novella over three weeks in 1960 when he thought he was dying, he remained frustrated that it became his signature piece above works he considered superior; and only wrote his own stage adaptation to stop other people from doing so, and to make sure it had his original ending (which was ditched from US editions of the book.)