In a bar near The Old Vic a THEATRE BUFF is chatting to his friend, an ageing and slightly conservative DRAMATURG for a touring theatre company.

D: Madame Bovary, a play you say?

TB: That’s right.

D: Not possible. She’s a wonderful literary creation I’ll grant you, but it’s all internal, her thoughts and emotions, she hardly says a word.

Mr Timothy X Attack takes us to an imagined future (what other sort is there indeed?) Humankind seems to have made it’s way to the far flung corners of the galaxy, which intrepid adventures have necessitated the provision of some kind of beacon or lighthouse for the better exploitation of safe galactic interchange . . .

This year, thanks to the support of the Spielman Trust, the BOVTS was able to present its Graduating Showcase in a proper theatre setting, and Principal Paul Rummer was delighted to see that St George’s was packed out for the occasion. The BOVTS is in its seventieth year, and in that time it has accumulated an enormously impressive list of past students . . .

O’Neill’s chunk of raw biography is human tragedy in which the domestic is elevated to a peak of grandeur. The playwright has publicly disembowelled himself and presented the heaving, diseased and suppurating offal for the world to see. Small wonder he didn’t want it produced during his lifetime. The term ‘dysfunctional home life’ hardly does credit to what is more like an arena in which competing personalities clash in an endless round of recrimination and guilt.

All That Fall originated as a radio play, but why adapt it for the theatre if not to let us see it? It might be thought that we are being short-changed, but in fact much is gained in the darkness. One reason is that this approach creates a kind of aural spaciousness, a vivid three-dimensionality of sound as the actors move around an audience that has to rely entirely upon what they are hearing. One’s imagination is set to work hard.