THE GO-BETWEEN Apollo Theatre

Robert Taylor and David Wood’s musical adaptation of L P Hartley’s classic novel is not a West End musical; it’s a chamber drama and much nearer to opera There is only one musician: a pianist at a grand piano on stage. Hopefully, the casting of Michael Crawford will bring in the public. He plays a man in his sixties, remembering events which happened to him when he was a 13-year-old in 1900. An upper-class girl and a tenant farmer, having a clandestine affair, used him as a secret messenger boy to deliver their love letters. The sad story, affectingly sung and acted, touches the heart. There are remarkable performances by two thirteen-year-olds, William Thompson and Archie Stevens. The imaginative and poetic staging is by Roger Haines.