Wonderful acting by Coventry group

THE Killing of Sister George is definitely not showing its age - a 1960s four-hander for an all-woman cast is both pertinent and deep as an ocean.

In ‘Swinging London’ the lesbian love affair between June Buckridge as Sister George (Jane Catherine Beswarick) and Alice ‘Childie’ McNaught (Christine Rye) is fraught with tension, sado-masochism, power imbalance and outright antagonism. Add in Mrs Mercy (Rebecca Keeves), whose clipped tones echo the BBC we remember, is heartless is her expectation that George will accept her ‘death’ – albeit as a moped-riding, hymn-singing district nurse on a long-running radio soap with the equanimity that would be shown by George herself in those circumstances.

George and Alice live in a homely flat under the long shadow of Broadcasting House. In turn their lives are in the shadow of the BBC and blighted because George’s popularity is slipping and she must die – the first of many in the idyllic village of Applehurst. It all sounds grim but here are lighter moments – particularly George’s gin-soaked soliloquy and the:Laurel and Hardy slapstick.

And there’s clairvoyant and neighbour Madame Xenia (Janet Westwood), whose comic performance rather steals the show. Her wide-eyed Hungarian responses to the idiocy of the people around her is wonderful to watch.

The interplay of the characters is wonderfully handled in this fast-paced piece with plenty to enjoy – and the welcome you receive at the Wheatsheaf (plus the complimentary glass of wine) makes for a very special evening.

Jane Howard