Amelia Sears directs a moving portrayal of complex family dynamics in Terrence Rattigan's study of emotional repression at Orange Tree Theatre.

The success of In Praise of Love is due in part to the actors' combined ability to keep the audience hooked on their every word.

Dominic Rowan's charisma as Sebastian Cruttwell, belligerent father and husband, combined with Claire Price's emotional vulnerability as Lydia, his secretly dying wife, creates a dynamic an audience cannot look away from.

Their tense family dynamic, and their relationship with kind-hearted author Mark Walters, played with endearing force by Daniel Abelson, creates a moving dialogue about what it means to love someone that stays with you.

As Lydia reminds her boyish son, played charmingly by Joe Edgar: "It is only people who matter at all."

This idea runs through the heart of the play, and Sears' production does not shy away from emotional intensity, all while playfully mocking England's discomfort with it.

The play brings the audience into this tense family dynamic (credit: Ellie Kurttz).

The conversation around romantic and familial love, set to a 1970's background and combining discussion of immigration and post World War Two influence feels as grounded and relevant today as it would have fifty years ago.

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The set, designed by Peter Butler, crafts the audience into the walls of this family home, observing the complicated push and pull of a family struggling with emotional repression.

The beauty of this is that each audience member experiences a different version of the play, seeing different narratives depending which character faces them.

Writing in the programme, Dan Rebellato said: "Rattigan's work is always intensely, sometimes unbearably, emotional, but it places the emotion elsewhere in the dramaturgy."

The power of In Praise of Love is the combination of many elements of staging, writing, production and acting working seamlessly to bring the audience into the home of these characters.

Find out more about Orange Tree Theatre and In Praise of Love here.

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