The Country Girl, Apollo Theatre

Many theatregoers will be familiar with Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! which was given a recent revival both in the West End and on Broadway, or film-goers with his screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Some will know his backstage drama The Country Girl (written in 1950) from the 1954 film version starring Grace Kelly, playing opposite Bing Crosby and William Holden, for which she won an Oscar.

The Country Girl hasn’t had a major London revival for nearly 30 years. Back then it starred Martin Shaw as the cocky young director Bernie Dodd and now in this slick production he plays the washed-up actor Frank Elgin, whose long-suffering wife battles to keep him off the booze when he is given one last chance at Broadway success by Dodd, here played by Mark Letheren.

Dodd battles his producer Phil Cook (Nicholas Day doing a very nice comic turn) to let him cast Elgin, who has been out of the business for 10 years, in a new play by Paul Unger (Luke Shaw). Elgin turned to the bottle when he and his wife, Georgie (the country girl of the title, played by Jenny Seagrove), lost their young daughter and now no director will touch him. But an improvised audition scene, full of passion and fury, convinces everyone involved that Frank still has what it takes.

It’s when the arrogant and abrasive Dodd meets Georgie, a former beauty made old before her time by the trials of living with Frank, that the scene is set for an emotional triangle. Dodd sees her as a co-dependent loser (Frank explains she too was once an alcoholic) while she immediately clocks that his motives in giving Frank a comeback - “I hate that word! It’s a return!” - are not as generous as they seem. What follows is Frank’s inevitable reacquaintance with the bottle, Dodd’s gradual realisation that drunks lie all the time, and his growing love for Georgie.

The first act is rather plodding - this is a very wordy (and indeed worthy) play with little tension and few funny lines - but the play suddenly catches fire in the last 20 minutes. When Frank goes on a bender and all seems lost, the three leads play off each other superbly in scenes where hateful truths are spoken and hard decisions have to be made. Will the play go on, will Georgie stay, or will she leave, and if so with whom?

Rufus Norris’s direction makes the most of what is a rather slight play and he draws out some terrific performances from his cast. Shaw is marvellous as the needy and child-like Frank, Seagrove is wonderfully understated as Georgie, and Letheren gives the arrogant Dodd a nicely judged dynamism. Luke Shaw as the playwright and Peter Harding, as company manager Larry, offer solid support. Scott Pask’s set, meanwhile, is evocative and clever.

• The Country Girl is at the Apollo Theatre, London W1 until 26 February, 2011
• Find Clifford Odets on Amazon