The Positive Hour

Miranda is a social worker, with no shortage of problems herself. Her best friend, Emma, is a failed artist in the throes of a mid-life crisis; her partner, Roger, is a frustrated academic, desperately trying to finish his book on Hegel. Personal problems are exacerbated by work and, especially, Miranda’s relationship with Paula, an unemployed single mother who takes up prostitution to survive.

Witty and astute, The Positive Hour teasingly questions the place of liberal values in a world of post-New Man, anonymous sex and the crumbling nuclear family.

REVIEWS

‘Funny, sharp and surprising…what is beyond doubt is the excellence of the acting…and the continuing unexpectedness of the script’s humour’
-The Independent

‘One of the best plays I’ve seen in ages…very funny, very subtle and very intelligent’
-BBC Radio 4

‘A marvellous, warm, angry play…edgy, pugnacious and bitterly funny’
-Sunday Times

‘A social comedy that hits the bullseye’
-Guardian

CAST & CREATIVES

Cast: Kate Ashfield, Julia Lane, Margot Leicester, Patti Love, David Sibley, Robin Soans, Holly Searson / Kitty Stafford-Clark.

Director: Max Stafford-Clark
Designer: Julian McGowan
Lighting Designer: Johanna Town
Sound Designer: Scott Myers

PERFORMANCES

The play first premiered at the Hampstead Theatre, London on the 27th of February 1997.