SOURCE: Nightingale, Benedict. “Full Marks for a Magisterial Performance.” The Times, London (29 June 1994): 22.

In the following review, Nightingale praises the casting and acting of the 1994 London revival of The Browning Version.

It was bold of Philip Franks to cast Clive Merrison as the failed schoolmaster at the centre of Terence Rattigan's Browning Version. The role was created with John Gielgud in mind, and not long ago was finely performed at the National by another of our warmer, gentler actors, Alec McCowen. But if memory serves me right, Merrison first came to public attention when he played an Enoch Powell clone in a fiercely radical play by Howard Barker. He is a tense, gritty actor with an acerbic manner and a long, wintry face. And recently the tip of his head seems to have got balder, adding to the impression of an inaccessible human Alp. The result is a...