Is there life after love? Kyra is adamant there is; Tom is not so sure. Richard Keith’s moving production of David Hare’s Skylight explores the gulfs between people, questioning whether you can really know a person and whether it is possible to regain the past.

Years ago, Tom (Josh Higgott), a restaurant owner, and Kyra, (Katherine Press) his idealistic waitress, fell in love. Kyra moved in with his family, and they had an affair, right under his wife’s nose. Scandal: their secret explodes and Kyra walks out to become an inner-city school teacher. His wife dies, and, distraught, Tom tries to force his way back into Kyra’s life. It's a gruelling dance of desire and frustration, each half of the couple attempting to confront the other with the tortured history of their separation - and come to terms with the past.

These still-passionate lovers electrify Hare’s witty script. Ironic asides blend seamlessly into belief-defining monologues that most often convince in their sincerity. Higgott’s Tom is admirably straightforward in his pride at his success and his unashamed need for Kyra; his attempts to suppress self-pitying arrogance and admit his guilt dominate the stage. Higgott comes gut-wrenchingly close to breaking-point as he describes his wife’s bitterness and the beautiful room he made for her to die in. Press’s Kyra, however, is a little less nuanced, maintaining her tone of prim self-righteousness in what are meant to be her most moving scenes, and showing little sign of the repressed love she is still meant to feel. Her enthusiasm for Tom’s son Edward (Chris Nelson) is refreshing - Nelson’s awkward adolescence adding an element of hope to this bleak play- but Skylight is a thing of tragedy, and Press does not quite carry it off.

Ostensibly, the script is class-struggle writ small. Kyra accuses Tom of being a "right-wing fucker" who treats people as objects. Tom sees Kyra as running from reality by "embracing the people". Yet despite several rather cringy political clichés, these characters manage to be more than mere symbols, and Keith's production balances the sympathy nicely between them. Hare doesn't offer any final judgements, and nor does this production; grounded in reality, it retains its tender and uncomfortable shade of grey throughout.