REVIEW: Look Back in Anger at the Octagon Theatre

LOOK Back In Anger at the Octagon Theatre is a bruising encounter with the rage and fury of Jimmy Porter - the now archetypal angry young man who burst on to the Royal Court stage in 1956 and shook the world of theatre.

Back then, for the working class voice to take centre stage was groundbreaking, and a watershed in theatre history.

As the play unfolds, the causes of Jimmy's anger are laid bare: as a child he had watched his father die an agonising death, he has been to university but can't find a place in society, he's married to an upper class woman who personifies all that incites his fury about the class system that still prevails and the cushioned pain-free life that is closed to him.

It all sounds very familiar, and so the Octagon production rings very clear 60 years after the play was first staged.

Jimmy's fury is difficult to endure in the first few scenes . . . not only that, but his less than working class accent lends a bit of confusion.

But as the story unfolds, the audience is gripped by the tension and friction that spill over into violence with Welsh flatmate Cliff, brilliantly played by award-winning actor Jimmy Fairhurst.

He serves as a buffer between Jimmy, played by the (angry but not so young) Patrick Knowles and his wife Alison, (Augustina Seymour)a woman who has been worn down by his anger from a woman whose attraction was her 'relaxed' outlook to one who endures every day with a stony silence. Anyone currently in the grip of The Archers will recognise the tragedy.

The arrival of her twin set and pearled friend Helena facilitates her escape. Daisy Badger makes her stage debut as the equally privileged debutante who moves in on Jimmy when her friend is safely out of the way. Cue more passion and guilt and cold heartedness.

More tragedy is waiting in the wings, how will the foursome respond?

If you're up for heavy drama, book your ticket to the Octagon to find out. It will be worth the trip.

Maxine Wolstenholme