Stage: Another Country

Not to be missed this week is the stunning Chichester Festival Theatre production of Julian Mitchell’s play Another Country, which follows a group of public school boys who, in a rapidly changing world, fight to come to terms with politics, sexuality and simply growing up in the oppressive surroundings of a traditional school, where success on the schoolboy military parade ground seems to carry more weight than almost anything else.

The original West End production launched the careers of Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh.

Central characters Bennett and Judd are outsiders; one a passionate Marxist, furious that the triviality of the school’s obsession with military antics prevents his serious study, the other a dangerously flamboyant young homosexual, unprepared to compromise his feelings and quite prepared to reveal the hypocrisy of other boys with whom he has had sexual liaisons – despite the heavy taboos of the time.

This excellent production carries all the power of the original and the story is as poignant today as it was back in the early 1980s. Probing deep into the idea that British public schools were the breeding ground for communism, spies and of course homosexuality, with nods to Burgess and Maclean, this is truly unmissable British theatre of the highest calibre.

Until Sat 12 July, Theatre Royal Brighton, 0844 871 7650 www.atgtickets.com/brighton