Kevin Elyot 'restored and justly celebrated' in My Night With Reg

Michael Coveney
WhatsOnStage
★★★★★

… The play was an instant classic… director Robert Hastie… done it so well, so beautifully, and cast it so brilliantly… Above all, Reg is a lovely, touching play… much more enjoyable all over again than I'd dared to expect… set the benchmark for gay drama with popular appeal for that period, and will serve again. Elyot has been restored and justly celebrated.

Charles Spencer
Daily Telegraph
★★★★

… beautifully judged, superbly acted revival… wickedly funny as well as deeply affecting… Somehow the comedy only throws the work’s sense grief and guilt into sharper focus… director Robert Hastie does the piece proud, capturing its constantly shifting moods with great élan… outstanding cast… excellent design by Peter McKintosh… Jonathan Broadbent is wonderfully touching as Guy… Julian Ovenden plays John with a raddled charm that is beginning to fray at the edges… Geoffrey Streatfeild captures the camp humour and the devastating grief of Daniel… strong work from Richard Cant and Matt Bardock… and Lewis Reeves.

Kate Bassett
The Times
★★★★

… Kevin Elyot‘s most celebrated and neatly constructed play… a strongly cast, often delightfully entertaining as well as mournful… [Guy is] poignantly played by Jonathan Broadbent… Reeves is certainly name to watch, and so is rising director Robert Hastie… Hastie might do well to play down rather than point up some of the play’s cliffhanger moments… moments of naturalistic intimacy are far more winning… Broadbent’s performance is full of beautifully detailed bits of comic business… Matt Bardock is explosively funny then startlingly sensual… Geoffrey Streatfeild is on superb form as Daniel.

Henry Hitchings
Evening Standard
★★★★

… a beautifully observant study of friendship, longing and betrayal… Daniel — who is lent a sumptuous campness by Geoffrey Streatfeild, at his joyous best… convincingly bruising Matt Bardock and finicky Richard Cant — while Lewis Reeves impresses… Robert Hastie‘s revival triumphs through a smartly judged mixture of exuberance and delicate understatement, highlighting the cool precision of Elyot’s writing… assured command of structure and a gift for incisive comedy.

Paul Taylor
Independent
★★★★★

… Robert Hastie's superb revival… really knows how to show a boy – and a girl – a heavenly time… Kevin Elyot's matchless tragicomedy… outrageously sharp-witted and observant… the play is, at one and the same time, a beautifully structured poem about Elyot's abiding (Proustian) themes… Daniel… is brilliantly captured by Geoffrey Streatfeild… Hastie endows with a just the right stage lyricism… bashful shrewdness and kindliness and his practical heart… are wonderfully well communicated by Lewis Reeves…. I hope that Hastie and gang are taking pride in how this production pays the author's memory a huge and (in every respect) handsome tribute.