Tadpole Productions aims to bring a professional edge to The PumpHouse's established reputation for high-quality community theatre, and its first outing fulfils the promise with a couple of TV stars joining drama school graduates in a modern interpretation of a seldom-produced historical drama.
James Goldman's The Lion in Winter is usually presented with elaborate recreations of 12th-century court life but director Robert Owens discards the period costumes and offers a contemporary meditation on domestic dysfunction and spiritual malaise.
The updating works well as the play's snappy dialogue delivers a timely message about wealthy elites devouring each other in their obsessively acquisitive quest for self-gratification.
The drama centres on the troubled reign of King Henry II who has imprisoned Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their battle is the fulcrum for the seething dog-eat-dog world of intrigue and changing alliances as a trio of ambitious princes plot to secure the succession.
Henry seems to hold all the cards and Erroll Shand echoes his portrayal of drug lord Terry Clark as he plays the villainous King with an easy-going confidence that masks a ruthlessly calculating malevolence.
