"My father was blind but we never mentioned it."

A funny and poignant autobiographical play by John Mortimer (creator of Rumpole of the Bailey) about growing up in the shadow of his blind and eccentric father. Mortimer senior was a renowned divorce barrister whose tea-time conversation could be expected to take in music hall songs, adultery, evolution, the ridiculous inconvenience of sex, Shakespeare, the importance of avoiding the temptation to do anything heroic in wartime, and the nightly ritual of drowning the earwigs that plague the garden he tends but cannot see. As well as introducing us to a gallery of memorable and often hilarious characters, the play offers a delicate exploration of the relationship between fathers and sons.

First performed in 1971 with Alec Guinness and Jeremy Brett as the father and son, the play was also filmed by the BBC with Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates and revived by the Donmar in 2006 with Derek Jacobi.