When the Night Begins

Synopsis

When Jane s wealthy husband dies, she feels compelled to seek out a man who figured in her childhood, a man whose hand to mouth existence in a high rise South London block of flats would suggest that they have very little in common. They haven't met for several years. The conversation starts...A thrilling psychological two hander in which victim and aggressor are hard to tell apart.

Our Review:

12 March 2004

Writer Hanif Kureishi found early career success with amusingly poignant and politicised rites-of-passage tales – such as The Buddha of Suburbia and My Beautiful Laundrette - which were at the dramatic vanguard of portraying the modern Anglo-Asian experience.

In more recent years, Kureishi has fallen from favour as his work has taken a more apparently self-indulgent turn. The backlash upon publication of his auto-biographical novella Intimacy, in which he clinically detailed his plans to abandon his wife and two children, was savage. Soon after, that was nearly matched by the critical opprobrium heaped on his first play in 15 years, 1999’s Sleep with Me, which covered similar ground.

Five years on, Kureishi is back at Hampstead Theatre for the first time since 1983’s Birds of Passage with another play which, while thankfully there’s no philandering writer in the lead, remains focused on the infidelities and betrayals hidd...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (128.40.79.243) - 22 March 2004:

I've seen a lot worse, so I wouldn't go as far as previous reviewers in giving it a measly one star. Yes, the theme was not stikingly original, neither was the scenario remotely plausible, but it was well acted and, most importantly, it did have the power todisturb me in several places....

Read more and add your own review