Theatre

Simon Gray’s 1984 play, which explores friendship, compromise and ambition across nearly 20 years within a group of Cambridge arts graduates, is a difficult play to crack as Gray has himself revealed in one of the most honest and hilarious books about theatre ‘An Unnatural Pursuit’. Director Fiona Laird makes two errors that almost scupper the evening. For some odd reason, she brings the play forward four years, setting the first and last scene in 1968 instead of 1964, but then destroys all credibility by dressing the characters in the kind of stiff-necked clothes that would only by then have been worn by engineering students. Secondly, she has chosen to cast actors who look as if they are in their forties at the start, which allows time no chance to make its mark.

The play has acquired a period patina since its last outing in 1988. So much so that it’s almost possible to feel nostalgic for a time when male Oxbridge students pontificated with arrogant assurance while a sole woman draped herself decoratively across the furniture and listened. Almost, but not quite. The Common Pursuit is a high-minded literary magazine that Stuart launches with the help of his friends. Inevitably, it struggles financially, not helped by contributors like Reece Shearsmith’s ambitious Nick who switches his loyalty to Vogue. By the reaction of the others, you’d have thought he was writing for Heat.

As Stuart is a gaping hole at the centre of the play, its heart instead lies with the more peripheral character of Humphrey (played by James Dreyfuss, pictured, with a perfect combination of waspish wit and affection) whose own work never matches his own high standards. Anyone who has passed 30 in the audience is bound to respond to the play’s understanding of the compromises of time. It’s an easy emotional button to push but Laird’s production only hits it sporadically.