The Truth About Blayds at Finborough Theatre

It was nice to have a good excuse to go back to Finborough Theatre and a play by A A Milne was certainly a good excuse.It also helped that it included William Gaunt who I have fond memories of from The Champions in the late 60's.

All that was easily worth £28.

Visits to Finborough have a routine and that started with a pint in Courtfield, opposite Earls Court Station, then a small meal in Cafe du Coin before walking down the incredibly busy, and fast, Redcliffe Gardens to the theatre.

That routine got me to the theatre early enough to claim a seat in the front row somewhere close to the middle.

The stage was set as a period study and this is where everything happened.

The titular Blayds was an elderly man and a famous poet. He lived in a fairly grand house with several members of his immediate family, one of who acted as his carer and another who managed his affairs.

The first half of the play covered the preparation and execution of Blayds' birthday and the second half covered the aftermath of his death soon after and the deathbed revelation (the truth) he made.

It was an interesting, if simple, plot whose real purpose was to be the framework for the interactions between the family members who were very different people and had very different perspectives on the situation. The truth was elusive, disputed and modified.

It was the mix of characters and their viewpoints that made the play interesting and entertaining while the truth in question raised a few points to ponder over. An entertaining play that makes you think is always good.

Knocking on the Wall at Finborough Theatre

The nice thing about Finborough Theatre is that they do the hard work for you, that is if they think that a play is worth putting on then it is worth seeing. And so I booked to see Knocking on the Wall for £20 without knowing anything about it. 

Other things going on made a Sunday matinee a good option which change the arrangements a little but not much, instead of having dinned at Cafe du Coin beforehand I had lunch there and ate the usual food despite the time change.

I also had time to explore Brompton Cemetery which is always worth a visit.

The other difference was that the audience arrived earlier than they do for evening performances and with the performance all-but sold out I had to settle for a seat at the end of the front row, which actually worked well, as corner seats often do.

Knocking on the Wall is a collection of three plays on the shared theme of loneliness with a hint of hope. That sounds a little miserable, and there were few laughs, but they proved to be engaging stories with characters I cared about in situations that I found interesting. The cast portrayed those characters excellently.

It was a thoroughly satisfying and fulfilling afternoon. Once again Finborough Theatre demonstrated what theatre can do and delivered a genuine treat.

Dead Dad Dog at Finborough Theatre

Going to Finborough Theatre regularly is one of my better habits and this time it was to see Dead Dad Dog. 

The reason was simple, it was a "comic smash hit in 1988, embodying the new Scottish optimism of its time". Well worth investing £20 in.

Trips to Finborough Theatre have their own rituals including eating and drinking the usual things in the usual places. 

These are still slightly modified rituals as the Finborough Arms is still out of commission and looks to remain that way for some time yet. It is a shame not having a pub close to the theatre but there are a couple close to the tube station that make adequate substitutes.

Dead Dad Dog is a simple if strange tale. A young man who has a busy day ahead of him, including a job interview and a serious date, gets visited by the ghost of his father, who everyone can see and hear, and who cannot be more than a couple of metres away from his son without causing them both severe distress.

The son not only has to deal with his dead dad following him around like a lost dog he has to cope with his dated comments.

The son goes through his planned events for the day and the unexpected presence of his dad not only provides a lot of humour, it lets us examine the relationship between the two and the differences in attitudes between the times of the dad and of the son.

It was a nicely constructed play that was funny but stopped well short of being silly and also gave the audience some things to think about.

Birthright at Finborough Theatre

Birthright immediately appealed to me as the rediscovery of a successful play from ninety years ago when it played in the West End and on Broadway. I also liked that it is set in Ireland as different cultures give different perspectives and different learnings.

And it was on at Finborough which is always worth a visit so it was a ridiculously easy decision to invest £18 on the experience.

There is a routine around visits to Finborough which I was very happy to follow. The cornerstone of this was the visit to Café du Coin in Earls Court Road for the customary Egg Florentine with a Magic Pear and Mint drink to wash it down. Always a good combination.

This new routine still has to cater for the Finborough Arms, the pub below the theatre, being closed as it has been since covid closed its doors. There are signs that it is coming back and it will be good to have a comfortable drink before performances.

Birthright is, apparently, based on the biblical story of Esau and Jacob but it is almost sixty years since I had stories like that forced on me at school and so that was not much of a help. More helpful was the explanation that it concerned one family on one day where the succession of the family farm would be argued over.
 

All the action took place in the main room in the family cottage with the two parents and two sons coming and going over the day as they went about their work and activities.

The set (pictured) was superb.

The play was almost all dialogue, a lot of it heated, as the four characters made their positions clear.

I liked the way that the four people all had good arguments though they did not always present them in a good way, e.g. at one point the father said things might have been better if he had married a woman from farming stock who knew the ways of farms.

A play about four strong characters needs four good actors and Rosie Armstrong (mother), Pádraig Lynch (father), Thomas Fitzgerald (elder son) and Peter Broderick (younger son) were all excellent. The father was the most animated so Pádraig Lynch got the most attention but this was a team effort. There's also a favourable mention for the fifth character, a family friend played by Aidan McGleenan, whose visits to the house helped to frame the story.

Birthright was just over an hour of passion and argument with only a few slower moments where I could catch my breath. Watching it was an intense and enjoyable experience and it was just the right length to maintain the intensity.

With Birthright, Finborough continues its good habit of rediscovering old plays and presenting them skilfully. It is another fine example of just how good small theatre can be.

Makeshifts, Realities and Honour Thy Father at Finborough Theatre

I need no excuse to visit Finborough Theatre and the trio of period pieces Makeshifts, Realities and Honour Thy Father, from just over a century ago, seemed to be right in our joint sweet spot. Well worth punting £20 on.

The Finborough Theatre routine ran to plan and I was sitting in my usual seat in the front row soon after 7pm  having been fed and watered in the usual locations beforehand.

Makeshifts and Realities are two related pieces written by Gertrude Robins. In Makeshifts two unmarried sisters have few hopes of finding a husband and try to make the best of the situation. In Realities we jump forward two years and find out how their decisions have worked out.

Honour Thy Father, by H. M. Harwood, was a different story told by the same cast and was also centred on a female character; that was the point of the programming. And it worked.

The stories were a great success because they gave us an insight to another time and other ways of living. Adding to that was the great cast, effective set and, my highlight, the fabulous costumes.

It was another good night at Finborough Theatre and another good reason to keep going back there.

The Wind and the Rain at Finborough Theatre

The Wind and the Rain was another example of Finborough resurrecting an almost forgotten old play, this time from 1933. It had a long run then and that was enough to persuade me to see it.

I will always be willing to pay £20 for an interesting sounding play at a theatre I love.

I will be lazy and let Finborough describe the play:

"Charles Tritton, an eighteen-year-old medical student about to begin his studies, arrives at Mrs McFie’s boarding house.

"Before him lie five years’ of swotting for exams and sweating over dissections, alongside his fellow residents – eternal student Gilbert Raymond who would rather be drinking and chasing girls than passing his exams; the studious sportsman and frightful bore, John Williams; and the sage older postgraduate student, Frenchman Dr Paul Duhamel."

And that was about it, four young gentlemen and their landlady just being young gentlemen and talking to each other about it.

While that is true it also considerably understates the play.

In a situation based directly on the experiences of the playwright, Merton Hodge, training at Edinburgh Medical School, the characters interacted beautifully as their individual stories evolved.

There was a love story in there too and while that helped edge the stories toward happy endings I was actually uncomfortable with it. I recognise it only reflected the truth of those time but the expectation that the man would led the life he wanted and the woman would fall in line, even if her home life was half a world away. 

Of course one of the points of seeing period plays is to be exposed to the thinking of that time and sometimes that is going to be uncomfortable, and this was a lot less uncomfortable than seeing David Tennant play a Nazi (in Good).

The simple and charming set did its work well in adding to the period delight. I also liked the simplicity of the props used, which mostly seemed to consist of bottles of beer being brought to the table!

The cast were good too and each character was distinctive and believable.

All of the pieces of the play came together nicely, as Finborough has a lovely habit of doing, making The Wind and the Rain another satisfying evening there.

The Return of Benjamin Lay at Finborough Theatre

The Return of Benjamin Lay got a lot of good publicity, not least a mention in The Guardian, so it was an easy decision to go and see it, especially at a modest £18 for being old.

I really miss the Finborough Tavern downstairs not being open, and no signs of it being so any time soon, but the amended routine of catching a tube to a nearby station, but not the closest, walking the area as a minor exploration before a light meal at Cafe du Coin worked as well as it always does.

Later, inside the theatre I saw some people with beers which I think they bought in a shop around the corner. I will have to investigate that for next time, especially if it is anything like as hot again.

On the way into the theatre we were briefly interrupted by a small group with cameras and recording devices who were asking everyone why they were going to the show and what, if anything, they knew about Benjamin Lay. I was happy to confirm that I was as ignorant of the content of the play as I usually am.

I have seen Finborough Theatre in several configurations but never like this, I did not even know that those windows were there! 

I have watched enough episodes of Antiques Roadshow to know old chairs when I see them so clearly this was a period piece. This, we learned, was a A Quaker meeting house in the 18th century where Benjamin Lay appealed to us to readmit him into our group after being expelled following an outburst.

During his appeal, Benjamin Lay told us a lot about his life and how that had led to his beliefs. In particular that meant the equal regard he had for slaves and animals.

It was quite a story, it started in London, included a lot of time at sea (the ladder was used to represent the rigging), a period in Barbados where he encountered slaves and then a move to America and the then British colonies. Along the way he got married and led a reasonably normal life, for that time and place.

The story was made all the more remarkable by Benjamin being barely over four feet tall and a hunchback.

Of course a good story is not enough to make good theatre but this was good theatre thanks to some good storytelling, notably from Mark Povinelli, who also has dwarfism. Benjamin/Mark spoke to us directly thought and engaged some of us with questions while making full use of the stage.

As a life story it worked very well and that would have been enough. Making it even better were the beliefs that Benjamin espoused, the abolition of slavery was the most prominent of these but he was also a vegetarian for similar reasons, "why would you kill and eat your neighbour?". He was an early abolitionist, hence his historical importance, and that is a cause that has largely been won.

Outside I was again approached by the camera crew and we had a longer conversation about the play and what it meant. I am a reflective thinker (I forget which self assessment tool told me this) and I prefer to let ideas stew and ideas to form slowly, which is one reason I write up things in my blog a few days after they have happened (the other is just being disorganised), so I hope that my half-formed immediate reactions were of some use or interest to them. One point I made is that despite being in a Quaker community, Benjamin did not use scripture to justify his views and, to me, he sounded like a Humanist.

The Return of Benjamin Lay was an interesting story with a moral heart, ideal for Woke Humanists like me!

The Retreat at Finborough Theatre

Finborough Theatre has been doing quite a few foreign plays lately and that suits me well as I like to learn about different cultures and to hear from different perspectives. The Retreat is by Canadian writer Jason Sherman who Finborough Theatre had called upon before.

I liked the simplicity of the premise, a writer's retreat, and the simplicity of the production, just three main characters, and I was easily parted with £23 for an unreserved seat.

The preliminaries were so standard that the server at Cafe de Coin knew what my order was as soon as I walked in. Fed and watered I made my way to Finborough in time to bag a seat in the front row.

I liked The Retreat from the start as the characters were engaging and the premise was interesting. In the centre of it all was a young inspiring female writer and and older established male writer looking to move away from low-brow success to do something more worthy, next to them was the writer's partner who put success (money) first and beyond that was the young woman's father.

Very quickly there was a lot going on and that is why I loved the play so much. We had the developing relationship between the two writers, things about Jewish culture that were interesting philosophically but which I did not fully understand, an examination of what is meant by "home", and the gradual exposure of what had gone before and which had helped lead to today.

It was riveting and highly entertaining stuff and that was helped immeasurably by strong performances from all three main actors, Jill Winternitz, Max Rinehart and Michael Feldsher. Jonathan Tafler was good too, as the father, but his role was less prominent. This was a play about people and it needed the good actors that it got.

The Retreat was another example of what Finborough Theatre does best.

The Journey to Venice at Finborough Theatre

Everything about this play could have been designed to attract me, it is a modern foreign (Norwegian) award-winning play about two old people who love to travel growing old being performed at Finborough Theatre. A bargain at £20.

As always the evening started with a small meal at Cafe du Coin in Earls Court Road where my order of Eggs Florentine and a Magic fruit juice was rewarded with the comment. "your usual", which it was.

Sadly the bar downstairs, The Finborough Arms, remains closed and shows no sign of reopening so I was unable to loiter with a beer beforehand. Instead I went upstairs and claimed a front row seat and sat in my thick winter coat because of the cold.

The premise of the story was that an old couple (older than me!) who used to travel a lot but could no longer do so (health and expense) relived some of their travels at home by watching old home movies, dressing up and describing the scene to each other. It was a sweet story.

Complicating things a bit were some negative memories and the impacts of their old age and poverty. Those memories included hints of affairs and their lack of children. (They did have a lot of cats though and they made a lot of noise off-stage.)

At times the dialogue between the couple got a little probing and testy but it was never argumentative and it was clear why they had stayed married for so long.

Other complications came from the visits of a plumber and a care assistant, the later being relentlessly chatty and bubbly. These intruders helped to put the couple's position in perspective and also gave them a glimpse of what having children might have been like.

I would not call The Journey to Venice an up-beat play but it gave a reasonably reassuring perspective or growing old gracefully and imaginatively despite all the messiness in the past.

Salt-Water Moon at Finborough Theatre

January 27 is my birthday so it is a day for treats. I booked Salt-Water Moon at Finborough and then built the day around that.

First stop was Victoria and Albert for mid-morning coffee and cake and a little perusal. The (free) display Re:Imagining Musicals in the hard-to-find Theatre and Performance section was the main attraction and, as always with Victoria and Albert, there was a lot else to enjoy along the way.

Then it was a walk up to Kensington Palace to take advantage of my Historic Royal Palaces membership. It was my first visit there and quite probably my last. There is not a great deal to see there and now I have seen it.

The rest of the afternoon was largely spent killing time in pubs with a couple of slow pints in The Hereford Arms and Courtfield before heading to Cafe du coin where I always eat before going to Finborough.

Salt-Water Moon is, apparently, a Canadian classic which with Finborough's reputation was enough for me to choose it as my main birthday treat. It also helped that I had seen the two actors, Bryony Miller and Joseph Potter, before.

Salt-Water Moon was a will they, won't they story of two young ex-lovers reunited after a significant break during which time both their lives had changed significantly, though just how much they changed was a little hard to work out due to his constant embellishment, retraction, restatement and denial.

During the reunion he was animated, physically and verbally, while she was constrained and precise. She was clearly in charge but he did not realise that.

Incidentally, in a similar play, Talley's Folly, which I saw at The Cockpit in October it was the man who was in charge though the balance between the two was more equal then.

It was the rollercoaster dialogue between the two young people that gave the play its purpose and its heart. I have been watching a lot of chess recently (Tata Steel Masters 2023) and it was a little like that with lots of to-and-fro during the competition and all possible outcomes still in play until the end when a clear result was reached.

The play benefitted from the intimacy of Finborough, we were only a couple of metres away from the actors, and the simplicity of the stage which had just a bench for them to sit at and a starry night sky for them to look at.

Salt-Water Moon was a gentle swim in other people's emotions and was just the treat that I was looking for.

Not Now at Finborough Theatre

I love the programming that Finborough Theatre is doing at the moment and so I see most things that are on there and any shows that I miss are more down to a lack of time than to the particulars of the play.

In this case it helped that Not Now is written by David Ireland because I had seen a couple of his plays previously, at Finborough, and loved them.

I have a routine when going to Finborough but that was blown apart by a tube strike that day which meant that after a lot of walking and a couple of slow buses, my evening meal was a sandwich bought at a nearby Sainsbury's and eaten on the way. Still, despite everything, I got to the theatre not that long after 7pm and was able to claim a seat in the front row.

The premise of the play was simple, a young man in Northern Ireland is about to go to London for an acting audition (the play opens with the opening of Richard III) and he gets involved in a discussion with his uncle who wants to be helpful but isn't. That conversation soon veers off, as all conversations do, and soon covers the relative merits of Shakespeare and Stephen King, Irishness, The Troubles and being gay or not.

It's a normal conversation from which we learn much about the two men and their family. Some surprising secrets are exposed through the tensions between the two. But they are family and this is good natured stuff, each wants to explain their point of view and not just belittle the other's.

A pleasant surprise for me was that the uncle is played by Stephen Kennedy. The name meant nothing to me (to my shame) but I recognised the voice immediately because his real name is Ian Craig and he's the chef at Grey Gables in The Archers. He also appears to have gone to school in Strabane where my mother grew up and many of her family still live, and to be Actor-in-Residence at Kingston Grammar School which is just down the road from me and where my younger son went to school.

Matthew Blaney played the nephew and together the two actors gelled magnificently, they looked and sounded like a nephew and uncle having a normal if slightly awkward conversation.

Not Now was short, just under an hour, but packed so much into that time that it felt like a full evening at the theatre.

Finborough Theatre and Not Now was a perfect match and I am glad I was there to see it sparkle.

Scrounger at Finborough Theatre was entertainingly difficult

Scrounger told the story of a woman whose life was severely disrupted by the damage of her wheelchair and her attempts to get recompense. It had good reviews but it did not quite seem like my sort of thing, but it was on at Finborough and I had a Tuesday evening to fill so I paid my £18 and went for it.

A visit to Finborough Theatre these days also means a visit to Cafe du coin in nearby Earls Court Road as it does good food, is great value and has a welcoming atmosphere.

Finborough Arms is above Finborough Arms and I always take advantage of that by having a pint before taking the awkward path up steps and through multiple doors to the theatre. I was amongst the first in so was able to claim a seat in the front row.

Facing me was a three part stage. In the centre, and taking almost all of the space, was a room in a flat in Elephant and Castle, on the right was a small booth that spent most of its time as various offices, and on the left was Islington.

Occupying the flat was the scrounger, Athena Stevens, who wrote the play about an incident that happened to her. Occupying the other spaces and playing all the other roles was Leigh Quinn.

The difficult part of the play started immediately with Athena having a pop at Guardian reading woke people coming to see the play for virtue signalling. There may well have been some truth in that but, either way, getting the audience to question why they were there was a good start.

Athena then told us her story. She narrated some of it with her and Leigh acted out the key scenes. The story was told with humour and carried a strong sense of injustice throughout. It was a David v Goliath story and we were cheering for David, obviously.

There were some nice touches along the way. I particularly liked the ongoing argument between Athena and her friend in Islington as to whether Elephant and Castle is in Central London. Her friend is right, it is not.

The story came to a clear conclusion and while that mattered the journey there mattered more. We all learned something about air travel regulations, what it is like to be lose your mobility, the price f wheelchairs, and the power of social media to build support for a cause and also to draw out the trolls, "scrounger" is what Athena was called by some for just wanting her damaged wheelchair to be repaired or replaced.

The difficulty was always there because of the subject matter and the unapologetic way that Athena addressed it full on and that tension added to the drama. Add to that the considerable humour and the excellent performances and you had a play well worth seeing and another boost for Finborough Theatre's deserved reputation.

Into The Numbers at Finborough Theatre was a powerful and intense drama

Into The Numbers was one of those plays that I really wanted to see but struggled to find a slot to do so. In the end I chose to go for a Saturday matinee when I already had theatre booked for the evening. It was also the last day of its run.

The 3pm start time was later than I am used too but worked well as it allowed me to have lunch at my usual time (1pm precisely) before heading into West Brompton.

The entire run of Into The Numbers had sold out and the room was already pretty full when I went upstairs through the myriad of complex doors. The stage was set more or less as a square with seating on two sides and I grabbed a place in the front row on the narrow side. On the stage was a lectern and two bench like seats. Above it hung some lamps.

This was January 27, my birthday and also Holocaust Memorial Day. The later was more relevant than the first as Into The Numbers started with The Nanking Massacre of 1937 in which soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered between 40,0000 and 300,000 Chinese civilians in just six weeks. In the play, the events were described in a book called The Rape of Nanjing and the story was about its author Iris Chang. Both the book and the author are real (so Wikipedia informs me) but I have no idea how true the story was, not that it really mattered.

We followed Iris on a book tour in which she summarised her book, was interviewed, answered audience questions and discussed the event with a Japanese official (acting unofficially). Away from the stage she talked to her husband. A lot came from all of these threads in a short time.

I had not heard of the Nanking Massacre nor, to my shame, several of the other similar events. Holocaust Memorial Day is meant to cover some of those, i.e. the ones after 1945, but they tend to get overlooked and Nanking was too early to qualify. If nothing else Into The Numbers was a harsh reminder of just how much harm man has done to man and how little attention we often pay to this.

On the lecture circuit the role of modern Japan was a useful examination of countries' response to their pasts. In the UK we have faced similar questions over the general issue of slavery and also specific incidents across the Empire like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the  Mau Mau Uprising. Here Japan's simple arguments were that modern Japan was not the same thing as the pre-war Japan and so it made no sense for old Japan to be judged by the standards of modern Japan or for new Japan to apologise for something that old Japan had done. Both arguments have merit whether you agree with them or not.

Finally, in Iris' personal life we saw how the messenger can become the victim from being immersed in the tragedy and in having to face criticism of her portrayal of it.

It was a powerful and intense drama.

Adding to the intensity was the remarkable production. Elizabeth Chan was powerful as Iris Chang and Timothy Knightley was the perfect foil playing most of the other main roles. The lighting that was prominent at the start remained important in setting the mood.

It was a difficult hour and a half, as it should have been with such a difficult subject, but it was an important subject too and the exemplary theatre craft helped the bitter pill to be swallowed.

The Passing of The Third Floor Back at Finborough Theatre

My first visit to Finborough Theatre was to see something by John Galsworthy, the second to see something by Jerome K. Jerome. There's a theme there.

My knowledge of Jerome K. Jerome went little beyond Three Men in a Boat but that was more than enough to persuade me to part with £18 to see one of his plays.

Being a second visit the logistics were easy; a train from Teddington to Wimbledon, a tube to West Brompton, a short walk to the Finborough Arms (conveniently placed below the theatre), a good pint of beer and a pizza from next door.

The play was set in a run-down boarding house where all conceivable corners were cut, early on the proprietress told a main that the milk could take a little more water. Staying in the boarding house was a motley collection of characters including a young artist, a couple of fraudsters and a heavily over painted middle-aged woman. All of them were struggling a little in life and while none were distraught or desperate none was happy either.

Finally, thanks to the maid taking the initiative in placing an advertisement locally, the room on the third floor was let to a young enigmatic man who quickly charmed the proprietress who was so enthralled with him that she tried to lower the asking price for the rent.

Having gradually met the large cast slowly over half an hour or so we took an unexpectedly early interval. I was so surprised by the timing that I did not leave the theatre, it was too early for another beer.

In the much longer second half the stranger spoke to each of the people in turn. He knew about their pasts, often claiming a previous connection, and also their current aspirations. From this he was able to offer sound advice. He offered it in a calm, measured and yet authoritative manner that the recipient of the advice was compelled to follow it.

The advice worked and they all lived happily ever after. Sort of. It was real life so things were never going to be quite like that. The point was that they were all happier and more comfortable with their situation than they were before. It reminded me a little of the impact that Mary Poppins had on the Banks family in a story that would be told a few decades later.

The Passing of The Third Floor Back oozed goodness thanks to its simple delightful story and the excellent cast that brought all the characters and their foibles firmly to life. I cared about all of them and was uncertain whether to smile or cry at the end.

Dissecting ethics charmingly with Windows at Finborough Theatre

I had been aware of Finborough Theatre for some time but there are lots of small theatres in London and I never had a compelling reason to go before. Then I saw Windows advertised in another theatre's email and the lure of John Galsworthy was enough and I willingly parted with my £18.

Finborough Theatre is conveniently located in West London alongside Brompton Cemetery. I took the tube to West Brompton and then a short-cut through the Cemetery. That part of the plan did not work well as there were no side gates and I had to walk all the way through then back up along the road outside. It was a pleasant walk if an unnecessary one.

The pub was a welcoming place and I had a difficult choice of beers to make. I'm still not sure what I had as there was no clip on the pump but the staff recommended it and it was a good choice. Their food came from the pizzeria next door and that also worked well.

The theatre was upstairs and we were allowed in a good thirty minutes before the show started. Not knowing the theatre I went up early to get a good seat. That was easy as there were seats on three sides of the stage and I took one on one of the central benches. Having claimed my seat I went back downstairs to get a coffee and came back with a beer, thwarted by the lack of paper cups I made the only sensible decision.

We joined Windows in the dining room of an upper middle class household, they had servants, soon after the Great War in which the son of the house had served. The father was a writer and the mother ran the house and family. Her immediate responsibility was to find a new parlour maid but the odd job man, who had come into the room to clean the windows, had a suggestion to make, his daughter. The only problem was she had just spent some time in prison, for murder.

What followed was a skillful dissection of ethics, politics and class as the opinions of the diverse group collided; as anyone you has read, watched or listen to The Forsyte Saga would expect.. Humour was one an obvious result of the collisions but there serious things to think about too. The play was a success because of the range of credible characters and the ability of the cast to bring those characters alive. It was an ensemble performance and they all deserved praise they got from the sold out house for the part they played. Carolyn Backhouse as the mother, Joan March, gets a mention because I loved the character and she had more work to do with it than the others.

Windows was a welcome discovery of a good play, a fine theatre and a decent pub. I expect the pub and theatre to have my custom again soon.