In writing about our fathers, we inevitably reveal ourselves; and John Mortimer's 1970 play about his blind, eccentric, barrister father is also a form of self-analysis. It explains the love of stories, jokes, language and the law that is part of his genetic inheritance while also offering a self-critical account of his reluctance to explore the darker emotions.
Seeing the play again after a long time, I am also struck by its similarities to the early Alan Bennett revue-sketch approach to drama. Deftly, Mortimer takes us through his early years introducing us to a set of bizarre neo-Dickensian figures: the family driver who treats a Morris Oxford as if it were a horse, the prep-school headmaster who sees unsolicited cake as a sign of sexual depravity, the ebullient sparks on the wartime film unit who cheerfully asks: "Had it in last night, did you?" You feel the young Mortimer stored away every character he met for future use.
But it is, of course, the writer's father who is the largest character of them all; and the chief pleasure of Thea Sharrock's revival lies in watching Derek Jacobi explore the old man's intransigent selfhood. While Alec Guinness originally endowed the character with his own aura of sanctity, Jacobi brings out his peppery brusqueness. You feel that in his constant injunction to his son to "paint the picture" the father created the future writer; yet his indifference to his son's literary efforts betrays a casual cruelty. But Jacobi is at his imposing best when he enters the law courts which he treats as a stage he can effortlessly dominate: the old man, he makes you realise, was an actor in all but name.
It is only when the hero marries a waspish divorcee, nicely played by Natasha Little, that the father's domestic tyranny is challenged. But, although the evening has a faintly discursive quality, it is well played by Dominic Rowan as the exploratory narrator, Joanna David, as his heroically self-denying mother and Christopher Benjamin as a comically euphemistic headmaster. And what you get, in the end, is not just a voyage round John Mortimer's father but also a highly revealing journey into the author's own interior.
· Until August 5. Box office: 0870 060 6624
