By Michael Billington | June 20, 2012 | The Guardian
by Michael Coveney | October 23, 2011 | The Independent
The late Harold Pinter, who first directed the late Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes, found it to be a rich and beautifully wrought piece of work that was “deeply satisfying” to direct. I see what he means but I do not share his certainty.
That production, which I saw at the Watford Palace, never made the West End. That led to some grumpy protestations, not least from Pinter. So it’s good to see the Donmar reviving the piece, even if David Leveaux’s production doesn’t prove any more persuasive.
Continue reading The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse – Review
Finally, 11 years after its premiere, and almost two years after the dramatist’s death, Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes has made it into London.
This rich, haunting play, mostly set in the early Fifties on Hayling Island and with a period flavour so strong that you can almost taste the powdered egg, was bumped out of the West End last time around by a dire musical.
In a way, you can see why those who blocked the play’s transfer back in 1999 were nervous.
There is a rare subtlety, and ambiguity about the piece, a mixture of comedy combined with something far darker that resists easy explanation or analysis.
Continue reading The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse – Review
Justice has finally been done. This Simon Gray play expired on the road in 1999 without ever making it to the West End. Now, in David Leveaux’s sensitive revival, it emerges as one of Gray’s best plays: a quietly moving portrait of repressive 1950s England and, in particular, of the way children often become the victim of adult dreams and desires.
The action is bookended by two present-day scenes in which the mature Holly visits his former music teacher. But the bulk of the story takes place on Hayling Island in the 1950s where the 12-year-old Holly is caught between conflicting emotional needs.