"Vincent In Brixton" by Nicholas Wright.

Nottingham Lace Market Theatre.

In 1873, at the age of 20, Vincent Van Gogh - pronounced in the same way as "Fun Loch" - rented a room in Brixton while he was being groomed for a career as an art dealer in his family's business. Vincent, in falling first for the landlady's daughter and then the landlady herself, is drawn into the household's web of secrets, all while carrying out household chores like peeling potatoes and doing the gardening.

Vincent is extremely naive for a twenty-year-old, by today's standards, in every sense; worldly wise and emotionally.

The play traces the transforming effects of love, sex and youthful adventure on Van Gogh's still unformed talent, portraying him as he might have been over four years. It's a mostly fictional piece of work but also includes some factual information. This is due to a lack of information from the early years of Van Gogh's life. What's a bit of poetic licence though where a good story is concerned?

Jake Turner (Vincent) dons a credible Dutch accent, which did not waver throughout. One thing you notice about the physical appearance of Jake and pictures of Van Gogh is the resemblance, it's uncanny, and the clothes have been really well researched as they match many of the clothes worn by the artist via pictorial evidence. The whole wide doe eyed look works very well to depict the naivety of the character and by the end of the four-year period, you also start to see the makings of the more mature Vincent, also brought out by his drawings.

Clare Choubey (Ursula) really wears her emotions on her sleeve as Vincent's landlady; well in fact not just on her sleeve as her style of clothes and the shade of her clothes gives indication to her mood and feelings. It's been a while since I've seen Clare on stage but she has lost none of that emotion she manages to inject into the characters she plays.

Ben Dixon (Sam) plays Ursula's other lodger. A painter and decorator who also produces decent drawings, which is where Vincent first comes across Sam. Sam is very down to earth and speaks his mind, which Vincent finds a bit hard to take and comprehend at their first meeting. The atmosphere soon mellows though and Vincent even helps Sam with his artistry. Sam is also very much in love with Ursula's daughter, causing a short-lived love triangle between Sam, Eugenie and Vincent, although one party lusts at a distance for a short while.

Laura Sherratt (Eugenie) really comes alive with the introduction of Vincent's younger sister, Anna, and sparks start to fly from all angles. There's a really nice slow burn with Eugenie and Laura bubbles along nicely until she forces Anna's hand and the pressure cooker boils over.

Alex Milligan (Anna) is the antagonist without even realising what she is doing or that she is throwing the cat among the pigeons. Her desire to look after her elder brother causes trouble and that is when Anna, in her blunt Dutch outspoken way, explains what she thinks is going on with Vincent and Eugenie and tells Ursula that Vincent is leaving for Paris on the orders of the family. What she says though causes all sorts of upset within the household. I also love Anna's accent which is even stronger than Vincent's softer Dutch tone.

Directed by Guy Evans he keeps the pace up all the way through, and while the play is not a long one, with the pace, it seems to be done sooner than we'd expected. Obviously the sign of a good storyline, direction and good acting ability to keep us all centred on the action and story unfolding before us.

There is good attention to detail, especially with the scene where Vincent returns from his Paris journey, and turns up at Ursula's door in the rain, and enters with wet hair and spots of rain on his raincoat, but there were a couple of other times I thought might have shown more realism.

When Sam and Vincent were having a beer session, bottles of beer were brought in with no liquid in. Water could have been put in the bottles for realism. One scene had Ursula take an imaginary top off of the bottle and when Ursula invited Vincent to admire the border that Sam had painted in the room, we had to imagine the border. Apart from these small things, which probably no one else noticed, I loved the rustic furniture and cooking vessels as well as the actual preparation of the food in the first scene.

Lighting Design by Allan Green. Nothing fancy here, it wasn't needed, but just told us when there was a scene change or closing and opening of the acts. Simple and effective.

Sound Design by Jack Harris. Again, the same as the lighting, simple, but a gorgeous choice of music for the scene changes and Act division.

Max Bromley is in charge of the costumes for "Vincent In Brixton". and again, we come back to that keen eye of what Vincent Van Gogh wore from the pictorial history books. the other costumes also looked to be appropriate for the time period and fitted in like the proverbial jigsaw, maybe the one that Sam was working on!

I feel educated, as well as entertained with this play, and will admit that I could have sat there even longer to see more if there had been an extended version, such was the extent of my enjoyment of this story and the classy acting form this perfectly cast cast.

"Vincent In Brixton" is sold out apart from a few tickets available for Saturday evening's performance. A great start to the new season and in my opinion, the future audiences this week will not be disappointed.