If you're longing to assess the strengths and weaknesses of improvised playwriting, there isn't a better illustration to hand than Mike Leigh's problematic
Two Thousand Years, which The New Group is presenting with a cast that wasn't in on the improvisation. Under Scott Elliott's diligent guidance, this game octet rehearsed the finished script in the traditional way and is therefore caught in the middle of the enterprise.



Throughout the very talky, not to say argumentative, piece a middle-class Jewish family in the Cricklewood section of North London encounters a series of ultimately minor crises. The busy-busy action takes place as the months between August 2004 and September 2005[...]