Under the Blue Sky

Synopsis

"Sad single teachers get together. Drink tequilla, get very pissed and reveal secrets and then stagger home at four in the morning, with some dim light in your brain saying 'Shit. Year seven first lesson'." It's the end of a century, a time for people to look back and try to make sense of who they are. Across six connected lives, repressed emotions are brought to the fore in an attempt to settle the score with the world around them.

Our Review:

28 July 2008

Eight years ago, David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky was acclaimed in the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs as a thoroughly engaging, poetic, ninety-minute triptych of interlocking erotic duets for three pairs of teachers in the East End, Essex and finally on a Devon beach.

Anna Mackmin’s fine revival at the Duke of York’s, with an entirely different cast led by Catherine Tate as a slatternly maths teacher in the second section and Francesca Annis as a wistful senior in the third, is cause for double celebration: the play is rightfully restored to a wider audience and proves the West End is not yet a graveyard for serious new drama as bruited abroad by one or two critics and Alan Ayckbourn.

First, we see the charismatic Nick (Chris O'Dowd) attempting to close down his relationship with needy Helen (Lisa Dillon) while cooking up a chilli dinner and revealing that he is moving from their state school in Leyton to the private sector. Next, two ...

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Latest User Review

Kensal Rise - 3 October 2008:

How does Sycamore Flint know that "Nigel Lindsay was Nigel Lindsay". Does she know him? I thought his performance was exquisitely judged and naturalistic opposite the sometimes hammy but occasionally excellent Ms Annis. The third section was easily the best written and best performed. ...

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