SUMMER DAY’S DREAM Finborough Theatre

JB Priestley’s leaden socialist debate, set in the imagined aftermath of World War 3 (when an atom bomb had been dropped with apocalyptic effect) failed when it premiered in 1949. Members of a British family, living a quiet, idyllic, communal life in an old country home on the South Down, totally self-sufficient, have given up the car, the telephone and television. They don’t want governments making decisions on their behalf. They want to be left on their own to do their own thing in their own way. They are visited by an American, Russian and Indian delegation who have industrial plans which they say will bring prosperity and progress to the area. The play’s construction is poor and the introduction of a love interest is misguided.