Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts at Richmond Theatre

Again this was a case of it is on at Richmond Theatre so I ought to go and see it. 

I have fond memories of the tv series too though my recollection of it is dimmed by the many intervening years.

For some reason, this was a more expensive show than usual for Richmond Theatre and so I headed up to the top level where seat Upper Circle A 12  was a mere £17.5.

It was dead centre too. The only downside is that it takes an awful lot of stairs to get up there and then some more very steep ones to get down to the front row. I am starting to notice these things!

In House of Ghosts, Morse has to solve a case of unexplained death during a performance of Hamlet and the ghosts were from his university days when he had been involved in another production of the play which involved some of the people who were also involved in the latest production.

Morse, and Lewis, tried to solve the puzzle by interviewing lots of people in lots of places, as well as going to the pub together, so the scenes changed swiftly. This was done smoothly and cleverly by moving just enough props to create each place. This is common theatre practice but it is not often done as well as it was here.

At the centre of everything were Morse (Tom Chambers), Lewis (Tachia Newall) and prime suspect and director of both Hamlets (James Gladdon) and they were a very strong core. Each character was vivid, believable and brought something different to the play.

I vaguely recall seeing this episode on TV and while that might have helped with one of the twists it did nothing to help to solve the main mystery and the ending came as a good surprise.

Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts did everything that I expect from a show at Richmond Theatre, it was a professional production that entertained easily without expecting too much from the audience.

Death Comes to Pemberley at Richmond Theatre

I had not heard of Death Comes to Pemberley before, and had forgotten that Pemberley is the country estate owned by Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but I had heard of PD James and it was on at Richmond Theatre where I see almost every play so I went for it.

Mu usual seat on the left side of the front row of the Dress Circle had been taken so I went for the right side instead where seat Dress Circle A6 cost me £43.

The view from there is good, which is why I (almost) always choose to sit in the cheaper seats in the front row of the Dress Circle.

The photo also shows that the stage was fairly bare, more on the later.

While this was set in the world of Pride and Prejudice all that did was give the story a location and some characters to start with and this was very much a crime story and not a period drama.

It was a good story too with lots of dead ends and twists, in other words I had no idea who the killer was or why the killing was done until the reveal on stage.

However, I do not think that the story translated well from the page to the stage and, at times, it felt like a staged reading, an audiobook with pictures. I would have to see it again to test my theory but I think that part of the problem is that books can quickly move from one location to another whereas plays cannot so to achieve those changes they went for a fairly bare stage and moved just a few props in and out for the different scenes. That sort of worked but it meant that the play was not very visual and with little physical action there was little to watch.

Putting those negatives aside, it was a good story and the actors told it well. I enjoyed it but would find it hard to recommend it.

Little Women at Richmond Theatre

I never read Little Women (no great surprise there) but I had learned about it from radio drama adaptations and also an In Our Time episode and that was enough to tempt me to seeing it on stage. The usual process secured me seat Dress Circle A 22 for £39.

 

Just in case you did not know, Little Women tells the stories of a family of four sisters as they grow to become women, a coming of age story with four variations.

These stories have their ups and downs, as life does, but it is all very gentle and there is nothing puzzling or overly emotional to get engrossed in. It is all very English, except technically it isn't.

The lack of depth to the drama gave the cast little to work with but they did what they had to do with wit and charm. They were all good if not stretched.

The staging was lovely too, able to present many different scenes with just a few minor prop moves, which the cast did themselves.

The one thing that confused me was in the story, possibly the most significant event was moved from the first half (where it would have been a natural consequence of events) to the second (where it came out of the blue). That may have been to hold a key moment back for dramatic effect but it confused me, and probably everyone else there who, I presume, all knew the plot.

Little Women did what good tour shows do. It entertained simply and professionally without taking any risks. I prefer challenging and contentious plays but there is also a place for simpler things, provided they are done well, as this was.

The Merchant of Venice 1936 at Richmond Theatre

Most plays at Richmond Theatre interest me and most performances of anything by Shakespeare do too so the combination of both was unmissable. 

As usual, there was an ATG opening night offer and so I was able to get seat Upper Circle A12 for just £31.5. However, on the night the Upper Circle was closed, presumably because of low sales (for some shows they make no attempt to open the upper level), and I got bumped up to Dress Circle B6. Luckily there was no one tall in row A.

I had not had the opportunity to see The Merchant of Venice for many years and most of what I remembered was from school days. Because of that I do not know how much of a shift they made in moving it to England in 1936 when Mosley's Blackshirts were rampant.

I suspect that quite a bit was cut, to give more prominence to Shylock but this is just a suspicion and most of the text of this play was most definitely Shakespeare.

I understand why they set the play when and where they did but to end with the populous standing up for the Jews jarred a little when Shylock had refused any amount of money to save Antonio who was portrayed as an honourable fascist.

The messing about aside, this was a good Shakespeare with a good cast in which Joseph Millson shone as Antonio. Everything about the performance was good enough to let me forget the updating and to simply enjoy one of Shakespeare's more notable plays.

Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre

I have never been a reader of detective fiction and rarely watch it on television these days so I had no idea (before I looked it up just now) that Picture Your Dead was the eighteenth Roy Grace story by Peter James but it looked interesting enough to go to see a stage adaptation.

As usual I went on the opening night to take advantage of the ATG+ offer of Dress Circle seat A23 for £36. 

I did not take a picture of the set, a mistake in retrospect, which worked like I've seen TV sets work with all the locations, more or less, on stage at the same time with the action moving between them. 

Stage left was a flat where a young couple lived, stage right was an artist's studio that morphed into a collector's private gallery and stage front was an undefined place where Roy Grace and another police officer discussed the case.

The only quibble was that some of the action was right in the front-left corner where the high numbered seats could not see, including mine.

The story was a good one with lots going on and going on quite quickly as things happen or were uncovered. And while most of the main thread was guessable, this was not a whodunnit more a willtheygetawaywithit there was plenty enough story to keep me fully engaged throughout.

Helping with the storytelling was an excellent ensemble cast with lots of strong believable characters played convincingly. 

The story, the staging and the acting made this an extremely entertaining and rewarding evening.

The icing on the cake was the double-twist at the end which changed the whole nature of the story and provided a good ending. The first of those twists was so unexpected and delivered so quickly that I am pretty sure from the overheard comments that some of the people behind me had missed, it was that good.

I had expected Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre to be an "average" evening at the theatre, admittedly I have quite a high average, but it was much more than that. 

A Man for All Seasons at Richmond Theatre

My only previous exposure to A Man for All Seasons was being taken to see it at the cinema when at school, sometime in the '70s, so that I could learn some history from it. I never did well at history at school (except one term when we had a supply teacher, but that's another story) so I am not sure that worked.

While I was not particularly enticed by the play the draw of Martin Shaw was obvious so I was happy to give it a second chance.

The name was a big drawn, and possibly a big cost too, and the seats were more expensive that usual which drove me upstairs from my usual position into the Upper Circle where seat A10 was still £25 with my ATG discount. 

At that price there was little to lose and the view from up their is good, as the picture below proves.

Other people thought so too and a group of four of us went together; I am able to get four discount tickets per show and it is nice to be able to share the love of theatre with friends.

I remembered the bare bones of the Sir Thomas More story  but history has remained of little interest to me over the intervening fifty years and so knew nothing of the detail and was happy to have that presented to me.

I loved the staging!

The mood remained nicely dark and moody throughout while various props moved in and out briskly as the story moved from one scene to the next.

Martin Shaw was a dominant Sir Thomas More and easily lived up to his star billing.

Gary Willmot played "The Common Man" to good effect as a narrator, foil and modest participant.

Edward Bennett was might fine too as Oliver Cromwell, the main antagonist to Sir Thomas. In this he was the proxy for Henry VIII how made surprisingly few appearances in a story that was all about his claim to be the head of the Church of England.

And that hints at my problem with the play, the story did not really add up.  The ending was particularly problematic and might have spoiled the evening had not the production been so good in all other aspects.

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) at Richmond Theatre (3rd time)

Having seen Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) twice in one week when it first came to Richmond (Monday 13 and Saturday 18 Feb 2023) I was always going to see it on its return. 

It was clearly a popular show and that helps to explain why seat Dress Circle A24 was £34 this time when it had been £28 two years ago. That is still a very generous price for such a good show and here my ATG+ Membership helped with the usual £10 off for the first night.

Pre=theatre followed the well established ritual of a Tofu Firecracker in Wagamama and a large bottle of Budvar in the theatre bar before the show started.

The set looked much the same as before, as expected, though the positioning of the props was slightly different.

The main difference from the original show was the cast, though the distinct lack of information about this on the ATG website is a familiar and inexcusable problem.

The new Darcy was the centre of the story, as the old one had been, and so Rhianna McGreevy had the biggest impact, at least I think it was her playing the role.

There were other small changes that I noticed too and I am sure that there were plenty of others that I missed. For example, they sang Big Boys Don't Cry last time but not this. 

Even with the cast changes, it was very much the show that I had seen and loved twice in 2023 and I loved it again in 2025. It remained an entertaining mix of stories and characters mixed with dollops of humour and song.

Boys from the Blackstuff at Richmond Theatre

I need a reason not to see something at Richmond Theatre so I was always likely to go to Boys from the Blackstuff and in this case I had the very positive reason that I had enjoyed both the original play and the subsequent TV series by Alan Bleasdale in the '80s.

That was more than enough for me to fork out £26 for seat Dress Circle A19.

I do not recall the details of the original series, it was over forty years ago!, but I suspect that this was a companion piece rather than an adaptation. 

Original story or not, it very much had the felt like the show I remembered with a mix of desperation and humour as ordinary people fought for work in Thatcher's Britain.

What was new, or I missed it the first time, was the way that even those that were in work or were employers were trapped by the same system. Nobody was winning.

The most memorable character from the series was Yosser Hughes, with his oft repeated phrase "Gizza job", and he was put centre stage here too which I though overshadowed the other important stories a little. Making this version of Yosser Hughes look like the original did not work for me either and it almost veered into pastiche. Luckily the strength of the other characters and the other stories was enough to keep the "boys" of the title plural.

The staging was impressively simple,  flexible and appropriately industrial. In some ways it was the star of the show when everything else was good. Running a close second was the script that wove the stories of the various characters together to create a single narrative that informed and entertained.

Boys from the Blackstuff was not the Alan Bleasdale classic but it was a very acceptable substitute and a timely reminder of what neo-liberal politics does to ordinary people.

Summer 1954 at Richmond Theatre

Summer 1954 is two one-act plays, Table Number Seven and The Browning Version, by Terence Rattigan paired together as one show. I am not a great Rattigan fan (normally) but as a serious theatre-goer it made sense to see some serious theatre  on my birthday.

As it was my birthday I pushed the boat out a little and paid £50 for seat Dress Circle A 21. This is more that I would normally pay for Dress Circle and I head up to Upper Circle for the more expensive productions but this was my birthday and I was worth £50 (plus a little bit more for beer and ice cream).

I head heard The Browning Version on the radio but too long ago to remember much about it, and Table Number Seven was new to me so I was looking forward to hearing two new stories.

Table Number Seven came first and we set in a hotel in Brighton where several elderly people lived. 

The story was about one of them who had been caught acting inappropriately (for 1954) and the reaction of the other residents to this. These reactions varied from hostility to indifference as they discussed how the hotel should respond.

There were other events going on in the residents' lives and these gave all of the characters a richness that made the main story compelling and believable. 

It was all the little character details and the great skill of the ensemble cast that made the play a great success.

The Browning Version had a different setting and a different story but the theme and construction was the same. Events happened and we learned more and more about all of the characters.

It was all the little character details and the great skill of the ensemble cast that made the play a great success.

In both plays one character has to make one big decision in the main story line and while there was drama in that it was all the little steps along the way to those decisions that mattered. They were two rich and rewarding plays. Ideal for a theatre loving birthday boy!

Filumena at Richmond Theatre

This was one of those occasions where I knew nothing about the play or the playwright but the synopsis sounded fun and it starred two names, both of whom I had previously seen on stage a few times, so I was happy to book. Somebody beat me to my usual seats so I had to book at the other end of the front row of the Dress Circle where seat A2 cost a modest £35 with my ATG+ Opening Night Offer.

Going to Richmond Theatre is a habit and so is going to Wagamama beforehand to eat a tofu firecracker and drink a large positive juice.

 

The synopsis set the scene: "Filumena Marturano lies on her deathbed, waiting to marry the man who has kept her as his mistress for twenty-five years. No sooner than they are married, she makes a miraculous recovery, much to the surprise of her new, unwilling husband and his younger lover!" and at the start of the play that had already happened, the story went from there.

It was a gentle story that revealed more of the characters' past and their hopes for the future, with a few surprises along the way. A character driven drama like Filumena needs believable characters and good actors to bring them to life, and this had both.

Filumena was never going to be anything other than a BBC early evening drama, and it did not pretend to be. The production knew what the play is all about and how to make it work which made for an entertaining evening.

Punt & Dennis: We Are Not A Robot at Richmond Theatre

I have seen Punt and Dennis on stage several times mostly, but not exclusively, at recordings of The Now Show, so when they brought their latest touring show to Richmond Theatre I was quick to fork out £28.88 for seat Dress Circle A10.

 

I expected the two of them to stand more or less still and to tell stories, which they did. The tables and chairs where just there for them to leave the stage to the other for a while. 

There was some movement, and other acting, from Hugh Dennis but, sadly, not the raptor impression that had warmed up many a The Now Show crowd.

The material was much in the key of The Now Show too, also as expected.

This was towards the end of a longish tour but they still gave it a work in progress feel through their interactions with the audience and, so they claimed, recording on a clip chart which jokes worked well and which did not.

The show was full of little quips, satirical comments and funny asides. Something like chatting to witty friends in a pub, constant humour without any staged big jokes. They went for a large number of quick laughs rather then fewer big laughs. It is what they do, they did it very well and I loved the show.

Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! at Richmond Theatre

So often when I book a theatre show it is a no-brainer but very few are such obvious choices as an update to Drop The Dead Donkey written by the original team, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, and staring many of the original cast.

Quickness got me my preferred seat, Dress Circle A24, for £37.5 on the very first night of the long tour. Quickness was necessary as the week was completely sold out, though it has already been booked to come back again in June.

The premise was simple, the original Globelink News team had been recruited to start a new algorithm-led TV news channel on the lines of Talk TV or GB News.

The cast came on stage one at a time to loud cheers from the audience and a chorus of "Oh Fucks! from those already there.

After that it was pretty much Drop The Dead Donkey as we lovingly remembered and loved it with the same characters behaving in the same way and saying the same sort of things. 

The dialogue was constantly funny and the one-liners came thick and fast. There were topical jokes too, such as a reference to Marcus Rashford who had been in the news just a couple of days previously.

There was some good physical jokes too, like George's run-ins with a voice-activated coffee machine, and with a light switch.

Drop The Dead Donkey: The Reawakening! was everything that I hoped it would be, and more. It was genuinely funny in its own right and being an update on an old favourite was a nice bonus.

The Enfield Haunting at Richmond Theatre

I go to see almost every play that is put on at Richmond Theatre and with Catherine Tate and David Threlfall in the cast I was certainly going to see The Enfield Haunting when it passed through on its way to the West End.

Those names were expected to be a big draw and the prices matched so, again, I was forced out of my usual place, the front row of the Dress Circle, and I went up a level to the front row of the Upper Circle where a central seat (A16) cost a mere £20. At that price I could afford to take a risk on an unknown play by an unknown (to me) playwright.

I had seen other supernatural plays at Richmond Theatre, notably The Woman in Black, and with Richmond Theatre's reputation for putting on a good show I had reasonable hopes for the evening.

The view from my seat was fine (aided by using my coat as a cushion to make me sit a little further forward) and the set looked good.

What followed was a major disappointment.

The story had a few shocking moments and these were handled well with, for example, all the lights in the auditorium going off. but the bulk of the play felt slow and irrelevant. The children apart, the characters were not very believable and any supernatural story trying to be heard got lost in the messy interactions between the adults.

This was the first night of a preview run so perhaps things will get better but I found a lot of the dialogue stilted as if it had not be learned or rehearsed properly.

Apart from the few brief shocking moments it had nothing going for it and I was very glad that I had only paid £20 and that it was not very long.

And Then There Were None at Richmond Theatre

Although I have never read any of her books, I have a bit of fondness for the works of Agatha Christie gained through listening to radio adaptations, of which there are many. That made And Then There Were None at Richmond Theatre a must see.

My usual seat had been sold so I went for the same position on the other side, Dress Circle A2, which was a very reasonable £26. Lots of other people bought tickets too and the show was sold out.

I had heard it on the radio not that long ago, probably less than a year, and while I could remember the main theme, and the main twist, I had forgotten most of the details and, most importantly, who did it.

The point of And Then There Were None is the story and I settled down to some unchallenging but entertaining theatre. The simple plot is that ten people have been tricked into a short break on an isolated island and one after another is killed until And Then There Were None.

Being character-light the ensemble cast was composed of relative unknowns which, as before, proved just how good less famous actors are. And being an ensemble it is a little unfair to pick any one actor out and Sophie Walter, as the school teacher Vera Claythorne, gets a mention possibly because she was one of the last to die and so was on stage for most of the evening but also because she was very good in the role bringing real drama to the piece as revelations about her past were revealed.

The staging was very good, being clever enough to cope with the various scenes and events while not being too clever to detract from the story. The only part that did not work for me was the very beginning where a not very legible recorded voice read out the letters that brought the ten together and that had no impact on my understanding or enjoyment.

Once again I was gripped by the story, one again I failed to guess the killer and once again I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Vanya at Richmond Theatre

There are three main names associated with this play, all of which I am interested in; Anton Chekhov’s wrote the original play Uncle Vanya, Simon Stephens wrote this new version and Andrew Scott played all the parts.

I half thought about doing a Venn diagram of my experience of these people but quickly though better of it. Suffice to say I have seen several plays by both Chekhov and Stephens, a few with Scott, another Stephens version of a Chekhov play and another Stephens play staring Scott, so the Venn diagram would have several entries in the overlaps of two people. This would be the first entry in the central overlap of all three people.

I presume that of these three names that Andrew Scott was the big draw, while he would have been third on my list, and the poster certainly reflected that. The promoters were certainly expecting a big crowd for this pre-west end run and the tickets were priced accordingly. The price for my normal seat was around £60, I think, so I went up a level instead and paid £30 for Upper Circle A14. I may have been a little cautious with my money but I was off the mark quickly enough to bag a central seat in the front row,

On the day the performance, and the entire week-long run, were sold out so I guess the promoters knew what they were doing.

The set surprised me a little with its modernity and clutter. I never understood the point of the modernity (other that audience recognition perhaps) but the clutter soon made sense as the different parts of the stage were often used to represent different characters, e.g. Helena often sat on the swing.

I had seen Uncle Vanya a few times, three I think, and that certainly helped as the differences between the characters were slight visually, e.g. Scott held a dishcloth in one persona. Of course the voices were different, but not very different.

Uncle Vanya's (Ivan's) story got a little lost in the theatrics and my attention was drawn to the performance at the expense of the story, which is not that dramatic anyway, despite the appearance of Chekhov's favourite prop, a gun. It did not feel like the retelling of a masterpiece, it was more like a brand new play. Nothing particularly wrong in that and most people were there for Scott not Chekhov anyway.

The Stephens version had a lot more swearing, though nothing like the level of some of his other plays (Christmas, Herons, ...), and also quite a few moments of humour that often played on only having one person on stage. Vanya is not a comedy but I chortled quite a bit.

Being a one-person show the success of Vanya depended on Scott and he delivered.

I do not think that anyone will love Anton Chekhov or Simon Stephens more after seeing Vanya, and they may even forget that they were involved. Scott, on the other-hand, Andrew Scott cemented his reputation and he is what made the evening work for me.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo at Richmond Theatre

For some reason I was slow to the party when this was announced and when I finally decided to go my usual seat had gone so I was pleased that the equivalent seat on the other side was available.

The pricing was slightly different this time (I think I found out why later) and there were more cheaper seats in the front row of the Dress Circle and I was able to claim A3 for £33.

I was also able to claim a 500cl bottle of Budvar beforehand and while £7.5 is steep compared to pub prices I have paid more for less at other theatres - when did small cans of beer become a thing?

The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a little odd in that it starts with a Syrian refugee in this country saying that he is not going to tell the story of how he got here and then the play does just that.

It also had an odd set that did not look like anything specific and which was all sorts of different places. Some of these transformations were assisted by projected images and the scene at sea was particularly effective.

And that was the problem with the seat. This production had additional equipment in the rig either side of the stage and that seriously interrupted my view whenever people where on the bed at the right of the stage.

In many ways the story was one that I knew of a couple being forced out of their homeland by violence and making desperate decisions in the effort to get here that included working for criminals to raise the money to pay for being smuggled.

The last part of the story was the harsh and inhuman treatment they got once they arrived in the UK. Depressingly this play was written before the recent immigration laws and things are even worse now.

The play got a very warm reception at the end with lots of cheering but I found it a little thin, perhaps because I knew something of the story beforehand and perhaps because I had seen more engaging plays about refugees, Cargo at Arcola Theatre comes immediately to mind.

The lasting impression from the play was that harsh and inhuman treatment we give to immigrants and that is a message that needs to be shared.

Wish You Were Dead at Richmond Theatre

Crime dramas are not really my thing though I am happy to make an exception when it is on at Richmond Theatre and it is based on a book my best selling author Peter James who really likes to put the word "dead" into his titles.

The usual procedure was followed and I secured my usual seat Dress Circle A25 for a very fair £27.75.

The pre-theatre routine was usual too, and very dull. Being a local theatre I was able to eat at home and catch a 65 bus all but door-to-door. I had a bottle of Budvar on arrival, just in case I developed a cough, you understand.

I liked the set from the start. It looked like a run down stately home (though it turned out to do French, not that that mattered) and you could see both a reception room and a bedroom at the same time. 

The set stayed the same for the duration but some special lighting later on revealed some secrets.

I think I was expecting a whodunnit but this was not that. There was a twist when we found out who the baddies were but that was in the middle of the play and the rest of the story was about the goodies trying to overcome the baddies and not about trying to solve any mysteries.

I was quite happy with that and it probably made even more sense to people who had read some Peter James books and had come across the main character, DS Roy Grace, before.

Wish You Were Dead did nothing spectacular, and that was very the expectation. What it did do was deliver a perfectly entertaining evening in some style.

After the show, I stopped at the Angel and Crown on the way to the bus station for  couple of pints, just in case my cough came back.

Quality Street at Richmond Theatre

Quality Street just had so much going for it; it was written by JM Barrie, it was produced by Northern Broadsides, it was on at Richmond Theatre and it had a box of chocolates named after it.

To elaborate a little. JM Barrie is most famous for Peter Pan but he also wrote the plays Mary Rose and Dear Brutus which I had seen and loved. I had also seen some other Northern Broadsides productions and had loved those too.

All that meant that it was an easy decision to book my usual seat, Dress Circle A25, for a fair £31.

At its heart, Quality Street, is a will-they, won't they love story set in Napoleon England. And as with all such stories, it is the missed opportunities and misunderstandings blocking the apparent path of true love that create the drama.

There was a particularly unusual aspect to one of these misunderstandings that gave the story a nice twist.

Another nice part of the story was the use of a current day Quality Street chocolates production team to frame the story. It also helped to explain the connection between the chocolates and the play which might otherwise have been an unsatisfactory confusion.

There was plenty of humour in the story too including nosey neighbours and love struck young soldiers.

The cast of nine, some playing multiple parts, was superb at both the high drama and the humour.

Everything about Quality Street was what I hoped for and it was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon.

Home, I'm Darling at Richmond Theatre

I did not see Home, I'm Darling at National Theatre because it did not seem to be quite my thing, a little too light for me, but when it came closer to home and at a lower price I was happy to give it a go.

Booking was simple and I got the seat that really should have my name on it by now, Dress Circle A25, for a very reasonable £29.

Being a local theatre meant not worrying about finding a restaurant to eat at beforehand and leaving home just after 6:30pm still gave me plenty of time to stretch my legs a little on Richmond Green before going to the theatre bar and investing £7.5 in a large bottle of Budvar, not at all bad compared to other theatres where I have paid about the same for a small can of something not as good.

I assumed that this was a period piece set in the 1950s because I had been fooled by the advertising, as I was meant to be, and the play did nothing to dispel that until, at the end of the first scene, the wife briefly used a laptop (an Apple MacBook Air I am pleased to say).

The situation was then resolved, a married couple now in their late thirties had decided to adopt a 50s lifestyle the main element of which was that the wife stayed at home doing all of the housework and caring for her man, slippers ready for when he came home sort of thing.

They were blissfully happy and told us so in no uncertain terms.

The scene set, we were then treated to what felt like an extended episode of a sitcom, Terry and June possibly. Funny things happened, awkward things happened and unpleasant things happened but nothing of any depth or meaning. And, like a sitcom, it had a happy and fairly predictable ending.

There is a darker view which says that the wife was betrayed and had to give up many of the things she believed in to save the marriage, but I would be surprised if that is the message we were meant to take from the play.

As a sitcom it was perfectly fine, it was often funny and had nice contrasting moments of drama. It was entertaining, definitely worth going to see, but liked the bite to also make it rewarding.

Charlotte and Theodore at Richmond Theatre

I do not know what has gone wrong, or where, but this was the second time in as many weeks when I suddenly became aware of something on coming to Richmond Theatre soon when I would have booked it ages ago if I had know about it earlier. Kris Marshall was an obvious draw and so was the prospect of a "witty and challenging new play".

Perhaps I missed some emails or perhaps it was a late booking but, whatever the reason, I did not appear to be alone and there was an all seats at £25 offer on when I booked. That meant a slight upgrade from my usual seat to Dress Circle A19.

The play had three themes, the working relationship between married couple Charlotte and Theodore who were academics in the same philosophy department, their philosophical discussions that started with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and led to the conflict between free speech and inclusion, and their family life as parents.

The family bit was minor and irrelevant and seems to have been added just for laughs.

The philosophy theme started a bit heavy, I am not sure how much sense it would make to people with little exposure to philosophy, and got a bit unrealistic with Theodore taking a heated stance against pronouns. The play wanted to use the word "woke", thought better of it and used the synonym "kind" instead.

The changing working relationship between the two was the strongest theme.

The three only slight connected themes made the play a little disjointed at times but there was plenty of good stuff in there to generate an entertaining and stimulating hour and a half. The performances of Kris Marshall and Eve Ponsonby were fine though there was little real drama to give them the space to shine.

While Charlotte and Theodore had its limitations it was a perfectly decent night out and I am glad that I went.