NEAL BARRY OPENS A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS

A Small Family Businessmade a welcome return to the National Theatre as Alan Ayckbourn’s well-paced farce, centring on the contradiction of Thatcherism with its promotion of family values alongside the elevation of individual greed, opened last week, 27 years after it originally premiered. As the name might suggest, a small family business is at the heart of the action: Jack McCracken (played by Nigel Lindsay) takes over his father-in-law’s business only to find that his in-laws are, in fact, out-laws. The brilliant Neal Barry joins the comic hysteria as brother-in-law Desmond, in a play which “delivers both laughs and chills with great panache”.