SOURCE: "Stirrings in Sheffield," in Plays and Players, Vol. 25, No. 3, Issue # 290, December, 1977, pp. 36-7.

In the follwoing excerpt, Allen reviews a stage production of Brimstone and Treacle, examining the play's premise, its characters and the production itself.

Brimstone and treacle is apparently what the Victorians, stern administrators of all kinds of purgative, dosed themselves with in cases of constipation: the brimstone to do the job, the treacle to make the medicine go down. What if, so far as the swallower is concerned, they become as one? The medicine in Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle (much publicised on account of its having been commissioned then rejected by BBC TV) comes in the form of a young man smelling faintly of sulphur, rather given to 'tempting' talk, quite capable of delivering the goodies of the kingdoms of the earth, and with the unctuous air of a curate who has caught...