I got a last-minute ticket offer for this, and the air-conditioned Duke of York's was the best place to be on a hot afternoon in London. Last time I had a back row seat and I strained to hear Lindsay Duncan's dulcet tones. Mid-stalls was much better, especially for Francesca Annis's spell-binding narrative in the final section - it's worth going just to witness this. It made me forget I was in a theatre.

She's done a lot of TV since I saw her as a naked Lady Macbeth at the Greenwich Theatre. It's a shame, come to think of it, that Dame Helen Mirren is more or less the same age - Annis must have been second choice a few times.

Three two-hander plays in a one and three-quarter hours without an interval works well, partly because of the air-conditioning and partly because the three plays are so different. All depict teachers at crisis-point in their relationships linked by developments over the course of a year - 1998-9 and moves from Leytonstone to Essex to Devon as the teachers move schools. The same characters never appear twice but are referred to by the others.

For me it was a change to see a show where nobody burst into song or started fighting, although there are some worrying moments with a kitchen knife in the first section.

The stage works well, although it's a bit unnerving to see a blue neon outline at first, then neon lines that are walls between a kitchen and a bedroom. The fact that the third section does without them marksa complete change of mood.

In the first story a man cooks a chilli dinner and tries to tell the colleague he's been going out with for years that he's got a job in a private sector school. It had some funny lines, but it was partly spoiled by these two hysterical girls in the row behind who could have been auditioning for Big Brother. It was as if they knew Catherine Tate was in it, so they'd laugh at every opportunity right from the off.

The second couple did include Catherine Tate as a sluttish maths teacher at the Essex school who's taken a history-teacher colleague home with her for revenge on another who has dumped her. She is very funny but maybe she's ruined herself for the stage by being so successful on TV. You can't help recognising all the characters coming out in turn in Tate's performance,down to the gestures and the sudden changes in the tone of voice. I'm a big fan, not least because her 'old dear' is a dead ringer for my mother-in-law, down to the Camberwell accent and the laugh. Sadly, she's no longer alive.

I won't say too much about the last episode, the one that the title describes, except that Annis is well matched with the man who plays her colleague and the applause was pretty rapturous. Even the BB girls were stunned to silence.

The £3 programme has two articles: one very interesting about how teachers have been represented on stage and film since Shakespeare's time and their changed social status, plus one about the recruitment of young men for WW1. The latter is background that most English adults won't need. I thought the latter might be for younger members of the audience but it's more likely to be for American tourists, I think.

Sheila

Thanks, Sheila. Hadn't heard of this play.

No, I hadn't before I went, and my heart sank when I read in the programme it had teachers in it.


It's only on for two weeks, so maybe they are going on tour. According to the programme the play was a hit at the Royal Court in 2000.

Sheila

Just reading the Julia Copus interview on here, and she mentions David Eldridge, the author of this play, as one of her favourite playwrights.

Sheila