Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington says stage programming seems to be becoming safer. I agree – and it’s not just in the regions. We all know why. More and more, theatres are expected to compensate for social and educational shortfalls by boosting the number and range of workshops, courses, community and outreach programmes they already offer.
They must simultaneously continue to produce high-quality work that attracts audiences in ever-growing numbers (when, throughout the country, pubs, bars and restaurants struggle to draw cash-strapped people from their homes). All of this in the face of savage cuts, with more to come. So we can probably all agree that, in the circumstances, all our theatre companies are doing a fantastic job just keeping going, never mind producing work of the quality they do. Still, that doesn’t mean we (reviewers, audiences, workshop participants) shouldn’t keep asking them for more – it’s a way of showing we love them, want them, need them – and want them to have enough cash to do what they do to the best of their considerable abilities.
Under James Dacre’s artistic directorship, Northampton offers standard, audience-pulling fare – adaptations, classics and 20th-century Americans. It may seem safe – but it is far from bland. Last up was Aldous Huxley’s futuristic Brave New World. Now we travel back to Victorian London with Patrick Hamilton’s 1939 play, a melodramatic psychological thriller (translated to film in the UK in 1940; the US in 1944). Manipulation is the name of the game. William Dudley’s skewed-perspective set and coup de theatre videos disorientate audience perceptions. Acting is superb: Jonathan Firth and Tara Fitzgerald as the unhappily married couple; Paul Hunter the insightful outsider; Alexandra Guelff and Veronica Roberts respectively saucy and loyal servants. Lucy Bailey’s direction is throat-grippingly taut. What more to ask of Dacre (and his fellows)? Keep going.
• Gaslight is at the Royal Theatre, Northampton until 7 November
