If a schoolteacher was seen onstage 10 years ago, chances are they would have been a frustrated idealist, a bumbling Mr Chips, or appearing in John Godber's Teechers, the only classroom comedy programmed with any great regularity.
Since then, we have had Alan Bennett's History Boys - the definitive education drama of our times - plus television series such as Teachers and Waterloo Road, all designed to prove that schools can be as much a hive of incestuous bad behaviour as any other public service.
David Eldridge pre-empted this interest in staffroom sexual politics with Under the Blue Sky, first seen at the Royal Court in 2000, and now revived at Keswick's Theatre-by-the Lake. Eldridge's three-part drama is a pedagogical La Ronde: in the first scene, ambitious young English teacher Nick informs his colleague Helen that he is opting out of state education, and their relationship. In the second scene, we meet Nick's new paramour Michelle, drunk, dumped and determined to get her own back by seducing the virginal laughing stock, Graham. In the poignant final scene, two senior teachers debate whether it is too late to embark on an autumnal affair, and we discover that poor, abandoned Helen has met with a tragic end.
The play begins with a bang - the foundations of Nick's flat are rocked by the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf - though the action seems to belong to a more wistfully introspective era when personal relationships seemed impervious to global events.
Ian Forrest's production features some ebulliently up-front performances, particularly from Heather Phoenix as a shag-happy staffroom predator and Andrew Whitehead as her gibbering victim. Some people say that teaching is a noble profession; Eldridge suggests that it is a carnal merry-go-round only slightly inconvenienced by pupils, marking and inspections.
· In rep until November 3. Box office: 01768 774411.
