Theatre review: While We're Here

Barney Norris is an up-and-coming playwright who's presumably got a big change of style in store - this time next year his Nightfall will be playing at the new 900-seat Bridge Theatre. For now though things remain super-intimate again as he opens another new space, the Bush's Studio which aims to recreate roughly the size of the original pub theatre. While We're Here takes place in a cosy living room (designed by James Perkins) in Havant, a town near Portsmouth which, if the play is anything to go by, seems more like the middle of nowhere. Carol (Tessa Peake-Jones) has lived there, and in the same house, almost her entire life. Eddie (Andrew French) is more of a drifter, literally so in recent years when he's fallen on hard times and been sleeping rough. The two had a brief relationship twenty years ago soon after Carol's divorce, and have now reconnected by chance when they bumped into each other in a park. Carol has invited him to stay at hers until he can get himself settled.

Theatre review: Home

Last year Amelia Sears revived the explosive Brimstone and Treacle at the Arcola's Studio 2 and now she returns there (although the venue itself has dropped down a level to the basement since she was last there) for something much more contemplative, David Storey's gently absurdist Home. It's some period after the Second World war, and two elderly men meet in a garden. Harry (Jack Shepherd) and Jack (Paul Copley) peruse the newspaper, reminisce about their lives and discuss great figures from British history to while away an autumn morning. They later meet combative Marjorie (Tessa Peake-Jones) and her friend Kathleen (Linda Broughton,) who can find a smutty double entendre in anything. As they think about going off to lunch, they start to drop hints about exactly what kind of place this peaceful garden is in the middle of: They're not quite free to come and go as they please, there's a lot of doctors around, and Kathleen isn't allowed a belt or shoelaces. The arrival of Joseph Arkley's Alfred, a clearly disturbed young man who believes himself to be a wrestler and keeps stealing the garden furniture only goes to confirm what kind of environment we're in.

Theatre review: Brimstone and Treacle

Is Dennis Potter due a revival? The last time I remember there being much of a high profile to his work was just after this death in the mid-90s. Maybe Amelia Sears' production of Brimstone and Treacle could be the start of a reevaluation of his work. This has been a long time coming for me, I first saw a production of the play in Edinburgh 18 years ago, and when I still harboured a desire to work in theatre myself it was on my wish-list of plays to direct. I may have taken myself out of the running but I'm more than happy to settle for Sears' straightforward, tight production that keeps the 1970s setting and doesn't impose any high concepts on the play - but then, Brimstone and Treacle has quite enough going on by itself.