VETERAN playwright Charles Dyer wrote Rattle of a Simple Man in the Sixties, the decade of the Beatles, the Lady Chatterley trial and the Profumo scandal.

It’s a two-hander with virtually no plot, relying on dialogue between two individuals to maintain audience interest. It sounds difficult to achieve and it is; but Dyer’s characters have such depth and humanity that our attention is caught and held, the flashes of humour and shared experience make us want to know these people better.

Huw Higginson is a familiar face from TV’s The Bill and other staples, but his stage experience is extensive and it shows. He’s very comfortable in the role of Percy, up for the cup in his striped scarf and bobble hat; three sheets to the wind when he accepts a bet concerning a club hostess.

Hannah Waterman, perhaps best known for her role as Laura Beale in EastEnders, plays lady of the night Cyrenne, who takes the inexperienced Percy back to her London flat for a bit of business and ends up revealing far more than she intends.

Both actors are excellent, expanding their characters with deft strokes. It would be so easy to caricature, the tart with a heart and the clumsy virgin, but these two capture our hearts in their loneliness and vulnerability.

A special mention for Andrew Bloomer, stepping in, presumably at short notice, to play the part of Ricard, and very good he was, too.

This is an amusing, absorbing start to Ian Dickens’ rep season at the Civic, with three further plays to look forward to.

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