The Pride, at Trafalgar Studios There has been such a tumultuous and almost intimidating buzz about Jamie Lloyd's revival of The Pride that it all but dares a stroppy critic to come along and ask what the fuss is about. I am afraid it isn't going to be me. No reviewer in his right mind could deny that this is great theatre. Like all great theatre, it has a sure grasp of the human condition. Like all great theatre, too, it brings out the best in not just the actors up on the stage, but also the audiences. Plays about homosexual people almost always seem to portray them as victims - of, say, Nazi oppression in Bent, Aids in The Normal Heart, and a deranged, hammer-wielding lover in Prick Up Your Ears - but, refreshingly, Alexi Kaye Campbell's 2008 work features a perfectly healthy modern gay man in Oliver. The character - superbly played by Al Weaver - doesn't get to be hacked to death in the final moments, and the only Nazi he has in his life is one that he happens to pay to don an SS uniform and be very strict with him. Sure, it is risqué stuff, but the characters fascinate because they are well drawn and played. Hayley Atwell is on fine Vivien Leigh-like form as Sylvia, a highly strung illustrator who, in the Fifties, is collaborating on a book with Oliver, a children's author. He falls in love with her conflicted husband Philip (Harry Hadden-Paton) and, in this unenlightened decade, it ends badly. Fifty years on, Oliver metamorphoses into a cheerful out-and-proud journalist, whose promiscuity repels his boyfriend, Philip (Hadden-Paton again), while this time Atwell's Sylvia is his right-on friend who tries to broker peace. The fourth member of the cast is Mathew Horne, who deftly switches from being a rent boy via a doctor to wide-boy publisher. When I say that the play shows how all of us are shaped by time, it makes it sound earnest, but it is actually enormously funny. I would not recommend it to anyone who is quick to take offence or who seeks only relaxation and a few laughs in the West End, but The Pride has a voice all of its own - one that is insightful, human and unnervingly direct. To Nov 9; thepridewestend.com