Actor Alexi Kaye Campbell’s first produced work as a playwright shows thought and sensitivity in telling parallel stories of a gay couple in 1958 and in 2008, but I’m afraid that at a number of moments it overdoes things by just that tiny but fatal amount that tips matters into ridiculousness.

Certainly, the opening 1958 scene is meant to be stilted, as an indicator both of the era and of the subliminal signals that children’s author Oliver and his illustrator’s husband Philip pick up from each other; and the director Jamie Lloyd and his actors have thought seriously about period pronunciation. Nevertheless, much of the two men’s early exchanges are reminiscent of British comedian Harry Enfield’s antiquated information-film character Mr Cholmondeley-Warner.