I will begin simply: this is a very good play. I enjoyed it immensely. The cast - of whom there are two - give fine performances in their roles. The set design is minimalist but effective. The script is strong, the direction smooth. All in all, this leaves the poor reviewer with little to say without sounding borderline sycophantic.

The play is about England in India, and India in England. In a house in Tunbridge Wells, a girl named Andrea (Charlotte Pyke) lives alone with her grandfather (William Maxwell). His wife is dead, so are her parents. They live alone in the villa that has been the family home for two hundred years. Alone, that is, apart from Frances.

Frances is also played by Charlotte Pyke. She is a ghost, a memory, a secret that Andrea's grandfather keeps to himself, locked away in the attic, and ultimately, the play is her story. It is Frances who provides the bridge between past and present, between India and England, between grandfather and granddaughter. But where she connects, she also contrasts. Where Andrea is quiet, jumpy, mousy, Frances is - ironically - very much alive, vital and fiery. The change that comes over the grandfather (whose name, we learn, is Edmond) when the ghost appears is no less startling. Where he is distant and painfully formal to his granddaughter, to Frances he has the easy manner of an old adversary. When they talk it is clear that they have been talking together for years, there is a mutual respect, and a mutual exasperation that comes from having said all that needs to be said long, long ago.

It is the imperceptibly smooth nature of these transitions, the shift from soft-spoken girl to passionate spectre, from distant patriarch to weary disputant, that makes this play work so well. It flows naturally and easily. They even manage to incorporate what, for want of a better term, I will have to call "flashbacks" to past events - a man and a woman arguing over the fate of their dark-skinned granddaughter - without disrupting the rhythm of the play in the slightest. With a simple change in lighting and a subtle shift in tone and motion (both actors move wonderfully, Pyke in particular has a tremendous grace about her), the scene shifts two centuries into the past.

You may have noticed that I have avoided giving too much in the way of information about the actual plot. The story told in this play (Frances' story, largely) is rather like a jigsaw. One spots the overall picture rather quickly, but it takes a little while to be sure how it all fits together. Here again the pacing is excellent, details about the characters, and about the past are revealed steadily and - most importantly - naturally. For example, it is implied on several occasions that Andrea was in part responsible for the deaths of her parents, but at no point do they make the precise circumstances of their deaths explicit. To do so would be unnecessary.

And so we conclude. If you are in any doubt about my opinion - yes, I think this play is worth your time.

Daniel Hemmens, 21.10.04