"Duet for one"

Too rarely do we support our local theatre, as I have confessed before. But last night, we went along to see Tom Kempinski's two-hander - and came away raving about it! Was this because we were part of such a small audience, and determined to compensate for all those empty seats? No, I believe this was genuinely an outstanding evening of theatre, something to mark it out as worthwhile in spite of the rival attractions of the multi-screen Cineworld, or just staying at home with the TV or the iPlayer.

The play is clearly based upon the gradual decline into ill-health of Jacqueline du Pré, rather poignantly still alive at the time it was written. The musician (played by Haydn Gwynne) at one point accuses Alfred Feldman, her psychiatrist (the very English William Gaunt) of putting on his German accent. Acting that was other than excellent might have provoked a smile from the audience at this irony: as it was, it only occurred to me subsequently.