“If there is an afterlife”, then the late Michael Abbensetts must be “looking down from it in delighted surprise”, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. The Guyana-born playwright, who settled in London in the early 1960s, became known in the late 1970s for the black-led TV drama “Empire Road”, which aired on the BBC. Around the same time, he wrote “Alterations”, a “bittersweet” drama about a Windrush-era immigrant who is desperate to own his own tailoring shop on Carnaby Street. It premiered at a London fringe venue in 1978.
Now, it’s being given its first revival in 40 years – on the National Theatre’s vast Lyttelton stage, said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. “Alterations” turns out to be a thought-provoking play, even if it lacks the depth and intricacy of a truly great one, and it really “springs to life” in Lynette Linton’s warm and finely acted production.
“Excavated from the National Theatre’s Black Plays Archive”, and given new material by Trish Cooke, this “retro gem” is entirely set in a scruffy upstairs shop crammed with clothes racks, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. There, the ambitious tailor and his team “talk, dream, fight, horse around – and bet on the horses” – as they battle to finish a huge order. “Alterations” may be a period piece, said Tim Bano in The London Standard, but it is not in the least bit dusty. “Colour, music, motion, loads of laughter: the whole thing feels completely alive from its first moment.”
Arinze Kene is excellent as the tailor, an “anti-hero unlovably married to his job”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. There are strong supporting performances, too, in particular from Cherrelle Skeete as his neglected wife. “Alterations” emerges in this “richly textured” production as a “fine drama of ideas and warring imperatives, the humour stitched with pathos”. It highlights the realities of “attempted assimilation, while addressing – with timeless, tragicomic flair – the way that self-sacrifice can result in frayed hopes and dreams”. This is a “riveting” and “revelatory” staging that “reclaims Abbensetts as a major voice”.
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1. Until 5 April