“All I want is a little peace,” says Alison, Jimmy’s long-suffering wife.  If that’s what you’re after, you won’t find it here. No good production of Look Back in Anger is ever going to make for an easy evening, and this is very good, the kind of theatre that chews you up and spits you out at the other end, speechless.

Down the ugly plastic steps into the English Faculty basement, disbelief could be abandoned at the door of the Judith E. Wilson studio.  The set was dark and messy, all newspapers and sweets scattered beneath suspended scenery.Wooden boards sketched a roof; a screen of moving light made a great writhing window amidst the stagnation of the 50s Midlands flat. 

This is the original slice of disillusioned British drama. Screw escapist heroics: you’re stuck with Jimmy Porter, a smart ball of working class rage. He smokes his pipe and curses church bells; he insults old flat-mate Cliff and inexorably baits Alison. Osborne’s script could be played to insufferable angst, but this production’s far better than that. The chirpiness of the 50s tunes between scenes evoked several smiles, particularly when its lyrics made for brutal irony. ‘Witch Doctor’ has never held such poignancy. And it wasn’t just music enlivening the change-overs, for the characters bustled about stage, waltzing or moping as their situation demanded. In betraying her companion and replacing her as Jimmy’s lover, Alison’s friend Helena (Anna Maguire) danced about the furniture, dispensing her belongings in smooth usurpation.

These sequences were just one aspect of the play’s physical bravery. Jimmy and Cliff’s friendship burst into mock brawls that are going to bruise for weeks once this is over, and the former’s latent irritations exploded once in a while into the desperate, restless performances of an exceptional man rendered dull by circumstance. The highlight of Monaghan’s fantastic performance wasn’t these bitter dramatics, however, but his unrelenting tension: the flicker of annoyance over a paper, or the unpredictable softness of an embrace. By such subtleties, he ensured that Jimmy was terrifying for being a human being, rather than an Angry Young Man.

Other performances were prone to a tremble. There was little of the intimacy of old friends to the reunion of Alison (Katy Bulmer) and Helena, particularly in contrast to the boys’ chemistry. In narrating Alison and Jimmy’s history, Bulmer adopted a strange garble which somehow managed to be both manic and monotonous, yet all was forgiven in her final breakdown. It was the most beautiful and destructive conclusion to a production that I can remember. In its wake, the bow was downbeat and the exit solemn. You know it’s good when the post-applause silence can endure those ghastly white walls, all the walk back into the night.