All My Sons @ Royal Exchange, Manchester, until 26 Oct

Michael Buffong has quite the CV. At the Exchange alone his recent credits include A Raisin in the Sun, which had five stars thrown at it from every direction. And now he’s back at the Exchange with the Talawa Theatre Company’s All My Sons, a faithful but still fresh version of Arthur Miller’s post-war play about the aftermath of losing a son.

Like a lot of classics, Miller’s work can sometimes seem a bit A-level: predictable and dusty if done half-heartedly. The Crucible, for example, brought me absolutely no joy at school, but if I’d seen Talawa do it on stage, my double English class on Monday mornings could have been a lot different.

Miller’s plays are famously dialogue-heavy and character-led, but the pressure of this greater responsibility doesn’t seem to show on the cast. Don Warrington, of Rising Damp fame, plays Joe Keller, a disgraced industrialist who sold dodgy aircraft parts to the military during the Second World War (from which, three years on, his son, Larry, is still missing in action), with a deceptive calm, making his explosive moments all the more profound. Warrington is a big presence on stage, even at his most relaxed. A quiet tension brews throughout and his appearances threaten to blow the lid off. He’s also still at home in comedy, though; when he makes the audience laugh, he really makes them laugh.

Opposite him is Dona Croll as Joe’s wife Kate, who shows how all-encompassing grief, or a lack thereof, can be. She plays the heartbroken maternal figure extremely well, and her slow walk back to the Keller front door after she hears a cold, dreadful gunshot coming from her home is particularly poignant and beautifully done.

In the Exchange’s round there is a lot of space to take advantage of. One side of the audience got an enviable view of the torment on the face of Ann (Joe’s former partner’s daughter, played by Kemi-Bo Jacobs), while another side had a front-row view of one of the best stage slaps possibly ever. The tiny subtleties were as visible as the grand gestures – a difficult feat and absolutely crucial in this play of grief, guilt and regret. Every character has clear agency; there are no spare parts in this production.

On paper, All My Sons can look like a play simply about Ann and the Kellers, but the bit players are crucial, and, thankfully, the supporting cast on stage here are astounding, giving extra strength and density to the production. Roger Griffiths and Simon Coombs are particular highlights, the former confidently injecting comedy into proceedings, and the latter deliberately unsettling and uneasy.  

Predictably, there was a group of sixth formers watching from the upper tier. What a wonderful way to revise for an English exam – Buffong has probably helped them ace it.