★★★★☆ John Betjeman was the nation’s favourite poet. Hugh Whitemore’s Sand in the Sandwiches celebrates the famous man’s life and work starring Edward Fox. Graham Wyles takes a sideways look at the play.

★★★★☆ An interesting choice of play to kick off the summer season . . . It is a play, primarily of ideas, that whilst it may have lost some of its bite, has lost none of its depth, which in this production is brought out by all-round excellent acting being facilitated by sensitive and penetrating direction.

★★★☆☆ This touring version has some real strengths. Bathed in sepulchral purple and green light, the magnificently gloomy, Gothic set is far more substantial than that seen in most touring shows. Equally solid is Andrew Hilton’s eight-piece orchestra, producing a very satisfying full-blooded sound.

★★☆☆☆ Translating the inner to the outer is the challenge facing many an adapter of novels for the stage. Some things skip from page to stage whilst others have to be dragged, bullied and injected with various performance enhancing concoctions. The present offering at the Theatre Royal, however, seems to have developed a resistance to any such persuasions.

★★★★☆ This is one of those shows, based on a familiar and popular story that will hopefully do a great service in developing a taste for theatre in a young audience. To that end the creative team have done a great job in lifting a story from the page and making it into a theatrical experience that many may well look back on as a seminal visit to a live performance.