'Write what you know' is a familiar maxim for novelists. Perhaps this is why, when Dostoevsky was faced with the challenge of writing a novel within 30 days, he wrote The Gambler. He, too, like his protagonist, was addicted to roulette and was no stranger to debt. In fact, the novel writing wager was a high-stakes venture. If he failed,
As a piece of theatre, it finds its flow. As a debate play, though, it gathers a locomotive energy as it travels towards the showdown between Frank Miller (James Doherty), who is returning to this dirty little village in the middle of nowhere, and the marshal Will Kane (Crudup) who put him behind bars. That is mostly because of the uncanny and urgent relevance of this 1952 film about a community working out (or rather, squirming out of) its civic responsibilities around institutional wrongdoing.
This isn't just a play for people who have an opinion or strong feeling towards Maggie Thatcher, said Young. It's about class, about lives that collide, people trying to understand, asking questions, coming together and bridging that divide. I also think it's a play about what happens when people feel they don't have a voice, and how dangerous it is when they feel they don't have anything to lose.
