The Common Pursuit

Synopsis

This comedy charts the progress of a group of Cambridge undergraduates who launch a literary publication ­ The Common Pursuit. Fresh, determined and gifted, their joint venture brings them together in friendship, hope and the promise of a bright future. But as the years go by the friends find it hard to stay true to the ideals of their youth in the world beyond...

Our Review:

27 May 2008

Simon Gray’s 1984 play The Common Pursuit has endured nips and tucks over the years to keep it looking fresh but it remains stubbornly resistant to cosmetic fiddling. Every little change weakens it without solving the central practical problem of a group of Cambridge undergraduates viewed in the unforgiving light of what happened to them years later.

The first London cast aged down. The second in 1988 (including Stephen Fry, Rick Mayall and John Sessions) aged up. Fiona Laird’s attentive but flawed Menier revival strikes a middle course with unsatisfactory results.

If the year of the play is now 1968 (instead of 1964; they should have stayed there), James Dreyfus’s cynical moral scientist Humphry is both over-age and in the wrong decade, while Ben Caplan’s impressionable Martin is puppyish in an ingratiating style that doesn’t suit the role.

The group gathers for the launch of a literary magazine. By the second scene they have dispersed into London publ...

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Latest User Review

Fan-atical - 8 July 2008:

What a travesty! Terribly acted, boringly directed, and the play isn't much to work with anyway, but even so! I wonder if those cancelled previews weren't something more to do with the fact the actors seem to be so very uncomfortable in their parts rather than the set playing up which was the excuse made at the time? That would account for a lot - perhaps someone will spill the beans? There has to be some excuse for this excruciating production?...

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