FORTY years on, Dennis Potter's favourite play still has the power to shock and offend. The callous abuse, and the nationalistic bigotry, still all too recognisable in our society today.
It is not often staged, so we should be doubly impressed that this enterprising group have selected it, and presented it so well.
John Mabey's thoughtful production benefits from a strong quartet of players. Jean Speller is Amy, weariness and distress etched on her face as she smooths the moth-eaten knitted throw. She still clings to the hope that her severely disabled daughter [a convincing performance from Vicky Wright in a very challenging role] will one day come back to them. Her husband – Bob Ryall – is sceptical. He is convinced that the ingratiating stranger who invades their private lives is “up to something”.
In Andy Poole's chilling performance, he has the air of a doorstep evangelist, with his easy charm and oleaginous smile. His mealy-mouthed prayer is done in a stylised spotlight, and Potter would surely have loved the shocking “seduction”, choreographed to the folle farandole of Piaf's La Foule.
This is an impressive production of Potter's savage parable, just as provocatively offensive as it was back in the more innocent Seventies.
Michael Gray
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