Flat, empty and less flavour than an overchewed piece of gum. The direction fails these actors entirely - barely three jokes - of a play full of ups and downs - landed. The actors not only phoned it in - they too the receiver off the hook - the muscians seemed in purgatory having to sit there through it - and the rest seemed ready to get their paycheque and run. And I won't even begin to discuss the horrific, mis-proportioned and clumsy set design. The production fails this play entirely: Shelagh Delaney was of her time, & the play, a snapshot. The trivial forcing of a ridiculous feminist narrative kills every bit of enlightenment & joy from what should be a formidable play by an admirable female writer. Even the playbill article, hilariously suggesting that Delaney, a first timer, was denied breakfast with Beckett shows how obnoxiously misguided this is. A new NT low. I cannot BELIEVE Arts Council England keeps funding these quota-system nightmares.

4 audience members who remember the original found this an unconvincing evocation of the working clsss in the 1950s/1960s. It was overacted to the point of caricature. Acents unconvincing, basic continuity errors, not good casting. Helen over-glamourised, and failing to captur the gritty realism.