Dramas at the big house
MOIRA BUFFINI’S Manor at the Lyttelton has had a rough reception. Seizing on its failure, The Times rather extravagantly asked ‘Is it curtains for the National Theatre?’ The truth is that Miss Buffini has simply written an overloaded play in which a run-down manor house becomes a symbol of modern Britain. But, whatever its faults, the play set me thinking about the crucial role that the country house has played in drama down the centuries.
In an excellent article in the programme for , Louis Wise writes that: ‘We tell so many of our stories through country houses because they can seem to assemble the
