"The Royal Shakespeare Company has linked with Live Theatre in Newcastle to promote new writing in the north-east.
"One of the first fruits of the partnership is Keepers Of The Flame by Sean O'Brien, which has been warmly welcomed on the banks of the Tyne. It plays with the idea of a poet in the thirties who turns right instead of left and lends his skills to the burgeoning fascist movement.
"This is verse drama, which was thought to have gone out of fashion when the wheel fell of Christopher Fry's cart and Eliot's furies retreated behind the net curtains. The Guardian thought it was pretty good and the FT loved it: "O'Brien's confident and established voice as a poet has now fully meshed with his growing sensibilities as a playwright. I cannot think of a play for some decades that works this well both as verse and as theatre."
"The play stars Alan Howard, who some of us remember in his glory days at the RSC and who is now making a welcome return to the stage.*
Book now: performances are selling out."
David Ward
The Northern - Guardian online -
14.11.03.
*Newcastle stage?