Henry James once said that the two most beautiful words in the English language were "summer afternoon". For me they are "no interval". The prospect of tucking in to my after-curtain meal while other theatregoers are still only halfway through Wicked or Phantom is reason enough to make me, I admit, overvalue 90-minute shows.

The converse of this principle, however, is that when a long play is absorbing I feel I could remain in the theatre until even the wee-hour bars have shuttered. This is a rare experience: in 2007, I have had the pleasure only with Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia in New York; with Maxim Gorky's Philistines in London; and, now, with Tracy Letts' August: Osage County in another theatre capital: Chicago.