ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Humble Boy
Orange Tree, Richmond
THE BIG problem with a contemporary play which pays homage to other writers is that, without a strong authorial voice, the end product is less than satisfactory.
Thus it proves with Charlotte Jones's Humble Boy, which won several awards after its 2001 premiere.
There are shades of Alan Ayckbourn here and Tom Stoppard. And there's a reworking of Hamlet too, as son Felix Humble (Jonathan Broadbent) returns to the family home after the death of his father to find his mother Flora (Belinda Lang) cavorting with lover George Pye, played with energetic vulgarity by Paul Bradley.
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