As my readers know, i’m a loyal patron of the excellent Finborough Theatre which concentrates exclusively on thought provoking new writing, as well as rediscovering genuinely neglected works from the 19th and 20th centuries.
As part of the latter focus, The Finborough presents Laburnam Grove – a neglected early comedy from J.B Priestley.
From the finborough: “Nice little houses. Nice people. Quiet, respectable. No brokers’ men. No scandals. No screams in the night. Morris Oxfords, little greenhouses, wireless sets.
Ferndale, Laburnum Grove. A quiet, residential address in one of the newer north London suburbs. George Radfern, decent, respectable citizen and householder spends his Sunday evenings in his greenhouse, listening to Handel on the wireless. But when his grasping in-laws and daughter’s obnoxious beau try to coax more money from him, George makes an unlikely confession.
An exploration of greed and dishonesty in suburban England, Priestley observes the facade of middle class respectability, and its crooked undercurrent with verve and humanity in this immorally comic story of money, family, and criminality.”
