Goodnight Albert

Alan Clarke directs Roy Minton’s intimate play detailing the frank yet touching relationship between a brash young miner and his gran.

Alan Clarke directs Roy Minton’s intimate play detailing the frank yet touching relationship between a brash young miner and his grandmother, with whom he shares a small house.

The second of eight collaborations between Minton and Clarke finds their complementary partnership developing fruitfully. Minton’s drama makes the most of its odd-couple pairing, contrasting Albert’s witty banter with Gran’s solemn fretfulness. But their pair’s affection for each other shines through, emphasised by Clarke’s craft for close-quarters storytelling. In the play's second half the pair decamps to separate bedrooms divided only by a thin wall. As their conversation continues Clarke shoots as if their almost next to each other, sharing an unusual intimacy.