As an alternative to going to the Watershed, as we normally do, Raph and I decide to upscale our cultural outings by going to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School production of James Graham’s This House, over at the Tobacco Factory Theatre. A tempestuous and damp walk over doesn’t seem like a good portent, but I would be wrong. The graduating class (I presume) of 2023 do an all-round stellar job, albeit aided by an excellent ground truth to base it on. This House, set in the difficult minority governments of 1975, is impeccably written, dense with political insight and detail whilst remaining accessible and not bogged down by insider baseball. The production makes good use of the space, the case suffuse the script with life and some genuinely fine accent work, and I don’t know whose idea the Five Years tribute was, but fair play to them. It’s fascinating how the spectre of Thatcher looms over this time, her name spoken only once towards the end in victory, at all other times referred to as The Lady or the Member for Finchley. A fun guessing game of for which cast members we will one day - inevitably - say “we saw them first”.