An engrossing new two-hander about Benjamin Britten

Ben and Imo are composer Benjamin Britten and his musical assistant, Imogen Holst. But those cosy pet names tell us where we stand – or at least, where we think we do. The illusion of being inside an artistic clique is at the heart of Mark Ravenhill’s new two-hander, which began life as a BBC radio drama and which he has now opened out into a two-act play about the pair. Alan Bennett did a Britten play a few years back but Ravenhill is sharper, and as directed by Erica Whyman, Ben and Imo just about supports its own length.

Which is more than can be said for its subject, Britten’s 1953 coronation opera Gloriana. Ben (Samuel Barnett) is on deadline, stalling desperately over the big national commission that he’s claimed as of right, but which is turning out to be an albatross. Imo (Victoria Yeates) breezes in with her life packed into three carpet bags; forced upon the reluctant composer by the anxious commissioners and tasked with helping him to get Gloriana done. The heart promptly sinks: free spirit liberates uptight genius? Brilliant woman rescues stale pale male? Been there, done that, usually while listening to a BBC radio play.

But Manic Pixie Dream Girls weren’t really Britten’s thing (even when they were the daughter of Gustav Holst) and Ravenhill has something more interesting in mind. The long debates between the two have a boisterous, bracing intellectual energy, and they’re frequently very funny. A useful side effect of the authentically rendered 1950s setting (designs and costumes are by Soutra Gilmour and they’re very brown) is that expletives are suddenly rude again.

Gloriana was a rare Britten misfire, and it’s to Ravenhill’s credit that he doesn’t endorse the Aldeburgh mythology of a bold masterpiece misunderstood by establishment stiffs, or pursue the notion that Imo was a comparably gifted composer (‘I’m not good enough’, she says, and that’s that).