Cuban cliché

I had quite high expectations when the curtain went up on The President of an Empty Room. The writer, Steven Knight, produced the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Dirty Pretty Things and the director, Howard Davies, was responsible for Mourning Becomes Electra, one of my favourite productions of 2003. Nor was I the only one who thought this sounded like a winning combination. The press night audience included Derek Jacobi, Imelda Staunton and Stephen Sondheim.

My first impression of the play seemed to confirm this optimism. The designer, Bunny Christie, has ingeniously managed to convert the Cottesloe into a Cuban cigar factory, and the atmospheric lighting design by Mark Henderson underlines the audience’s sense of being in a claustrophobic sweatbox, with sunlight streaming in through half-shuttered windows. The scene is set for an epic confrontation.

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Ten minutes in, and I was still hopeful.