03 Apr 2017

Special attention has gone into the set design created by Hanna Bowe, which uses colour and dimmed lighting to evoke the feeling of a Manhattan apartment, whose owner has moved from beatnik poet to professional wordsmith. The shelves at the back of the stage are full of colour coordinated books and the desk and telephone table contain the organised clutter of a writer. The sofa and chair are homely and help to present the idea of middle-class literary success. It is the very picture of understated and aspirational.

17 Mar 2017

Ruth even takes her on as an assistant despite the clues offered by designer Hanna Bowe’s suave apartment set, adorned with meticulously coded books in confectionary colours, suggesting the writer’s life might be in better order as it is.

16 Mar 2017

Collected Stories is a finely crafted play which received various awards at the time of its creation. The text at times is exceedingly funny and of course a writer as skilled as Margulies is on home turf when he is writing about writers. However the play also reveals the tensions that arise in a friendship particularly when one friend’s career is waxing and the other is on the wane. Margulies gives the actors a script of substance and they rise to it to create an engaging production.

16 Mar 2017

The one room setting helps the claustrophobic feeling that emerges in the relationship, and yet it is kept fresh and pacy, thanks to tight, considered and excellent direction from Aoife Spillane-Hinks.