Shows

The new season at the Royal & Derngate is turning out to be one of their best ever. Their latest in-house production, JB Priestley's The Glass Cage, is the best yet.

The McBane family

It's 50 years since The Glass Cage was last performed. Priestley's son, Tom, rediscovered the script and the Royal & Derngate's is the first proper production since 1958.

The play is set in Toronto in 1906 in the austere home of the bible-bashing McBane family.

Into their straight-laced environment arrive three estranged relatives. Sister and brothers Jean, Douglas and Angus materialise like aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (a film which came out in 1956, the year before Priestley wrote The Glass Cage).

Although they come from the same family, their backgrounds couldn't be more different. The siblings had a deprived upbringing unlike the pampered, upper class existence of the Toronto McBanes.

Friction

The play shows the friction between the two halves of the family, their fears, prejudices, hypocrisies and lies.

A steely mood

This is very much a director's production. Laurie Sansom has given the play a taut, chilling atmosphere. At times, the action is stylised with dance and movement. It may sound surprising for a Priestley play, but it works very well.

Throughout, Adam Cork's music maintains the tension and gives the production a filmic quality.

The McBanes' Edwardian parlour, designed by Jess Curtis, is gloomy and cage-like, surrounded by tangled trees, like a barbed wire fence.

James Floyd (Angus), Dar Dash (Douglas) and Rebecca Grant (Jean) are excellent as the angry siblings, who're determined to get their own back on their rich relatives.

John Arthur, Robert Demeger, Janice McKenzie, Natalie Burt and Peter Bramhill play the wealthy McBanes. Robin Bowerman is the problem-solving family doctor.

At times, Priestley's script creaks with age, but Laurie Sansom's five-star production is riveting, unsettling and brilliantly acted.