Mike Leigh's Grief

Apparently there's a yearning in London for thought-provoking entertainment, which is cause for celebration in these down times.

We meet a very staid bunch of people in Grief. It feels such a dour household, I first suspected Leigh wants us to go into training for the coming months. But we are back in the '50s, where you pulled the curtains every evening and had a sherry as a treat.

It becomes clear that this family is a sister, her growing daughter, and her brother; the husband had died in the war. The brother is nearing retirement in the City where he works as a middle mangement clerk, a 'brave little soldier’ who puts up with commute, disrespect and boredom to keep his sister and her petulant daughter.

Women had returned to the home by then, and can really only do charity work if they are middle class. Everyone has returned to their roles in that uncomplaining, barely smiling, old-fashioned English way. It is touching to see the 'couple' labouring away stoically, doing their best, even when confronted with the friends who have carved out a better life. Her former telephonist friends are having fun - a concept that seems almost alien to her. Duty is all that matters, 'Keep calm and carry on' is still in the air in this house. That gentle behaviour, the thoughtful, appreciative kindness with which they treat each other makes you almost long for these days, although the daughter - full of puberty strife - clearly demonstrates how lifeless these lives really are. When the final explosion happens we are stunned.

And we begin to realize in the frozen demeanour of the brother what must have happened here. He is so full of grief, so frozen in his pain that he simply cannot react, he cannot show empathy at all, and we wonder what really happened in his life. I have never seen a more precise embodiment of trauma, and it is so sensitively, elegantly shown, I cannot recommend you enough to go and see this production.

I shall never forget the dulcet tones of this strange couple whilst sipping their sherry. What a life. And we have forgotten them already, yet there are many new war widows amongst us, and many others trying to stoically bear their grief. Maybe we will now feel a little more kindly about them.

This will be the play of 2011. Very different from Jerusalem, but touching the same nerve.