I remember when drama wasn’t something squeezed into an end-of-term production slot or a “practical enrichment” box on the timetable.  It was part of English, right there in the Key Stage 3 curriculum, alongside metaphors, Macbeth, and the Year 8 class jumping off the ends of their desks as Icarus tested his wings.  (Apologies to the Head whose office was below my classroom.)

Question: Compare the ways both writers transform personal pain into public performance. There are few moments more alarming than flipping over an A Level paper and realising the exam board has gone rogue.  That’s exactly how it felt in my imaginary Paper 3 this morning, when the unseen comparative poem turned out to be Sylvia Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus’, paired without warning with Lily Allen’s ‘Pussy Palace’.

The Faction’s The Talented Mr Ripley is currently in Brighton and touring across the UK in the coming weeks.  It’s definitely worth an evening of your time - slick, unsettling, and fiendishly clever theatre that lingers long after the lights go up.  I’ll be keeping an eye on whatever this company does next.