Maureen Lipman is Brooklyn housewife Elli
Maureen Lipman is Brooklyn housewife Elli © Johan Persson

A coup for the little Park Theatre in north London, which opened only a year ago: its first West End transfer. Maureen Lipman stars in David Grindley’s production of a play by Oliver Cotton. Lipman takes the role of Elli, who leads a quiet life with husband Joe (Harry Shearer) in 1980s Brooklyn. This elderly Jewish couple are quietly content – their main passion is ballroom dancing, which they practise during the show.

But the unexpected arrival of Joe’s brother Billy (Cotton), who has not seen his sibling for 30 years, opens the door to a terrible past. Billy has recognised a man who once served as a guard in a concentration camp and taken radical action. His revelations plunge all the characters into a testing crisis that is made all the more painful by long shadows from the past.

trh.co.uk, 020 7930 8800, to August 23

Photograph: Johan Persson

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