The playwright August Wilson once said that a lot of his work and that of his contemporaries seemed to be saying that "we need to, as black Americans, make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have". In the final play of his Pittsburgh cycle "Radio Golf he has his two protagonists Harmond Wilkes and Roosvelt Hicks planning to re-develop a run down area of the city against local concerns, but the two fall out over possible corruption and the alliances that Wilkes has made. At the play's end the development is still in the balance.

Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park has a similar ending with the re-development of a rundown house causing so much controversy that all the protagonists fall out over its future. But we have already seen its past - the same house had triggered a similar falling out half a century previously. Norris's structure has the actors playing almost parallel characters across the fifty year gap in the action which is a challenge to the audience to both identify and differentiate at the same time.

In Act One Russ and Bev are moving out of their home in the centre of Chicago to make an early run for the 'burbs, but while they are pioneers in this field they are not doing it for financial, opportunistic or political reasons - their reasons are very personal and Russ doesn't really wish to discuss it, thank you very much. There is no chance of anyone resting in peace though as first the local minister and then the local neighbourhood busybody and his wife invade the house to offer comfort and controversy in slightly unequal measure. And trapped in the middle of the approaching storm are Russ and Bev's housemaid Francine and her husband Albert.

Karl (a character transplanted from Lorraine Hansberry's play Raisin in the Sun) is how shall we say, not to beat around the bush and getting straight to the point at issue a bit of a tosser. A self important if not actually self elected community leader he has come to persuade/bully/intimidate/bribe Russ and Bev into cancelling the sale of the house to its putative purchasers who, it turns out, are a black family :"“first one family will leave and then another, and each time they do, the value of these properties will decline!" Nick Edwards did a wonderful job of making Karl a fine, upstanding agent provocateur with the tact of a machine gun and the charm of second hand car salesman. His twentieth century doubling as Steve, in act two, was equally effective, although this time he is exasperated, frustrated and finally goaded into illiberal joke telling which explodes his liberal pretensions.

Katie Smith as his wife Betsy and then his wife Lindsey had two very different tasks to tackle; Betsy being deaf and not quite clued into how the situation was deteriorating and Lindsey, in Act Two, being only too aware of the pitfalls of the discussion but gradually unravelling nonetheless. Her expressions and reactions were spot on and got great audience reaction in both acts. Matthew Vickers as the tortured Russ in Act One gave a smouldering performance as a father who wanted to move on and away and had as little time for the niceties of well meaning consolation as for the politicking of vested interests. He resembled nothing so much as an ants nest being continuously poked with various sticks until his anger swarms everwhere over the soon to be abandoned front room, engulfing all around him.

Jill Davy was note perfect as Russ's distraught but still devoted wife Bev. There was so much emotion, thought and good judgement in everything she did and her switches in mood seemed so natural and believable it would have taken a heart of stone not to feel for her predicament. I still have a mental image of her clutching the unwanted chafing dish - unwanted now they no longer entertain and the maid and her husband have rejected it as a gift - as a sort of comfort blanket. Her turn in Act Two as Kathy the lawyer (who turns out to be Karl and Bev's daughter) was wonderful in a completely different way, most notably its excellent comic timing, additionally difficult when the audience are laughing so much. Landé Bello completely mastered her character as Francine, helpful but never subservient, a woman with her own plan and a somewhat jaundiced view of the assembled company : "I think they're all a buncha idiots". In contrast to her second act's Lena, Francine was trying to exit the (metaphorical) stage quietly but just like Lena she was somewhat frustrated in doing so by her husband trying to be helpful. As Lena she was, like Francine, never strident but managing a clinical dismembering of the cosy get together that had seemed to be on the cards. Her sucker punch when Lindsey feels that her "ethics" are being questioned : "No, what we're questioning is your taste" was masterfully delivered.

Both of her husbands (Albert and Kevin) were played by Edwin de la Renta in a pair of wonderfully laconic performances, but with Kevin having a cleverly knowing look about him, until he too has his buttons pressed big time. Charlie Bailey's two roles might be described as bystanders to the main conflict but whereas his excellently realised young clergyman Jim was proactively trying to offer god's love and understanding and seemed perhaps more than anyone else to have come to us direct from the 1950s, his twentieth century Tom seemed to fade into the background a bit and possibly needed to be a bit more assertive of his place in the scheme of things (even if the part is a bit underwritten).

A special word needs to go to Nigel Oram and his stage management team for their gargantuan scene change (from smart 50s house to rundown noughties wreck) at the interval, and similarly Max Batty's old and new houses set exactly the right tone - receding comfort in the first, decay and conflict in the second. Irena Pancer's costumes illustrated both periods well, especially I thought for 50s Karl.

Rob Ellis pulled off something of a triumph in his Tower directorial debut. It was very sharp and didn't slouch for a second. The movement, the exchanges between characters and handling of simultaneous dialogue were superbly done, and the many little touches here and there that served to make the play even more enjoyable than it already was, were testament to a huge amount of hard work and serious thought by the director and his cast. He had a rather nice soundtrack too and the use of Look Homeward Angel to close the action was particularly poignant (I'm not sure if this was deliberate but the play of the same name won the Pulitizer prize for Drama in 1958 just as Clybourne Park did in 2011).