The star of this show is Philip Larkin although ostensibly it is Tom Courtenay who plays him. Expressive and emotionally astute, Philip Larkin's clear voice shines through in this glorified poetry recital, his wit and his dry, gloomy outlook keeping the audience chuckling appreciatively throughout. 
      The play takes us through a day in Larkin's life – not just any day, but the day after he has been evicted from the top floor rented flat where he has lived for 18 years. This acts as a prompt for Larkin to look back and reflect on what has been, what might have been, and what is to come. His thoughts are channelled through memories, self-deprecating humour and poems. Larkin himself believed that poetry is a form of heightened talking, and my one small quibble with Tom Courtenay's excellent portrayal is that, on occasions, it was difficult to assess where the talking stopped and the poem began. Courtenay is the only presence on stage throughout, and therefore has a big load to bear. In some places a better break to the monologue than jazz records might have been effected by some social interaction for the character – even if in Larkin's real world this may have been minimal. 
      To see the effect that some of Larkin's more acerbic lines could produced on an unsuspecting postman or colleague might have helped us see further into the essence of this reclusive man, while providing the audience with some diversity. 
      The Comedy Theatre's intimate atmosphere works in the play's favour. One feels like a guest in Philip Larkin's living room after he has become tipsy at dinner and is setting the world to rights for us. Trotting us through his amusingly un-PC politics and his indignation at the way things are today, he speaks to the curmudgeon in all of us. The stage, true to the idea of moving a lifetime, is filled with boxes and cartons containing the accumulated junk of Larkin's life. Courtenay uses his props to effect only occasionally. He wanders to the back of the stage to rummage for things or look for his records, but this is only a temporary diversion from standing centre stage or walking back and forth. The props could have been put to better use to add changes of pace and texture, and to prevent the piece from seeming quite so much like a poetry recital. 
      Larkin described his need to write as "the only possible reaction to a particular kind of experience; a feeling that you're the only one to have noticed something – something especially beautiful or sad or significant." This is the key to Courtenay's sketch of a deeply sensitive and vulnerable man who seemed to feel that his life was insignificant and doomed, yet who nevertheless felt, and obeyed, the impulse to express what he thought and experienced most deeply.
Anna Lehman