HOT: Table Manners, Old Vic Theatre, The Cut SE1 8NB

The Old Vic is showing the Norman Conquests trilogy for the first time in 34 years, and the first of the plays, Table Manners, takes place in the dining room of a country house over a weekend with six characters. I think you'd find this comedy of manners absolutely hysterical if you were English and understood the hilarity of East Grinstead as a dirty weekend location and noticed the small affectations of the middle class set a la Hyacinth Bucket. Luckily, I was in the middle of reading a pop-anthropology book called 'Watching the English' which delved into the mysteries and intricacies of English behaviour, which meant that I had 'ah-ha' moments when a character was folding napkins into cone shapes, or the bumbling apologies of the country vet, all of which were a bit lost on Huy.