What is entertaining about The Entertainer?

I must clear one thing up. This play has nothing to do with the Scott Joplin Rag featured in The Sting. If anything, the title is a little misleading. By the end of the play there will not be many characters the audience will still like. Osborne's play packs an emotional punch and his portrayal of a family is similar to that of people like Albee and Eugene O'Neill – where the creation of characters is more important than the development of plot. Add to that an intense theatricality, which must have influenced Churchill and Ravenhill and would have been startling in 1956, this play will engage the interest of anyone interested in theatre.

Has a play written in 1956 got anything to say to today's audience?

In a city where 26.5 per cent of households have no one in employment, when an increasing number of people are no longer able to contemplate home ownership, when increasing numbers are becoming reliant on donated food, when increasing numbers of young people are classifiable as "NEETs" and when members of our Armed Forces are engaged in a conflict which has not had universal approval, Osborne's play has some quite startling relevancies.

What can you tell us about the production that would encourage an audience to come to see it?

Archie Rice at first appears unaware of the startlingly obvious – variety theatre is dying. In Nottingham, the Empire was to close in June 1958. The income tax people will catch up with him and he cannot continue ignoring the feelings of the rest of his family. But we gradually learn that he is a hollow man incapable of making real contact with anyone. Osborne frames these scenes with extracts from Archie's stage act and the links between the two are fascinating to watch.

What has been the most challenging aspect of this production for you and the cast?

The repetitive and overlapping nature of the dialogue has taken some getting used to. He frequently has two separate and unrelated conversations happening on stage at the same time. As the designer, I have made a problem for myself as director. I feel that at the Lace Market we are inclined to use rather more of the stage then we need to so I have trapped the family in a room.

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