Alan Bennett's Enjoy

Alan Bennett's Enjoy, directed by Christopher Luscombe for the Peter Hall Company, brightens up the winter nights as it transfers to London's West End at the Gielgud Theatre. Alison Steadman and David Troughton star.

As the maxim goes, time will tell. It may have been Bennett's first theatrical flop when first seen in 1980, but nearly 30 years later, Luscombe has produced a tragicomic smash hit, which was lauded last summer when it opened at Bath Theatre Royal and on its ensuing record-breaking UK tour.

Enjoy follows Wilf and Connie as they are about to be moved out of the last back-to-back housing in Bennett's home town of Leeds, prior to the area's demolition. Before being re-housed in a new maisonette (complete with a waste disposal unit and non-slip vinyl flooring), a sociologist comes to observe them in their daily life. In Bennett's and Luscombe's hands, the ever more precipitous slide from normality to chaos is hysterically funny and, of course, painfully sad, all at the same time.

From her early success as Beverly in Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party (at the Hampstead Theatre before becoming a TV classic), Alison Steadman (Connie) has rarely been away from the stage or screen, and is currently Gavin's mother in the hit BBC 3 comedy Gavin & Stacey. She is joined by David Troughton (Wilf) who, for the RSC and National Theatre, has played wide-ranging roles from Shakespeare to Captain Hook in Peter Pan. The rest of the cast includes Carol Macready, Josie Walker and Richard Glaves.

Alan Bennett has achieved national treasure status. Following his early career in the Cambridge Footlights, his stage plays have included Habeas Corpus, Forty Years On, Kafka's Dick and The Lady in the Van, as well as his National Theatre hits: Single Spies; The Madness of George III and, most recently, The History Boys. His evocative radio and television plays have included Talking Heads and he remains one of the most distinctive voices in British cultural life.