Review: The Pride ***

In taking on two acting roles this year, as well as directing, Sheffield Theatres’ artistic director Daniel Evans has given himself plenty to do.

On the strength of this performance one hopes it is not too much to handle. This standard of acting, especially in a studio theatre, is staggeringly good.

What’s more, it’s not just the theatre’s boss who is brilliant, but every single actor in this intense little play that spans several years.

The Pride, however, lets itself down a little. A first play from Alexi Kaye Campbell, it is deeply impressive, but lacks confidence in its final third that upsets the beautiful balance of the first part of the play. Campbell allows oceans of unsaid emotion to play out in the beginning, only to give us a neat ending that undoes much of the earlier tension.

Spanning five decades, The Pride tells the story of three people who share the same name in 1958 and 2008.

The ’58 Oliver is a gay man, happy in his identity. Played by Evans like a zen master working his way to nirvana, it is as delicate as Jamie Sives’ Philip is a pressure cooker of a man, battling his own sexual identity.

This repression boils over violently and horrifically in one of the most disturbing scenes I have seen in the theatre, that is incredibly well performed and directed.

The 2008 Oliver, also played by Evans, with a waspish edge, is equally good and Sives as his partner Philip is perfect. It’s easy to see that director Richard Wilson is an actor’s director, the performances are all brilliant. If only the play had the confidence of everyone around it.