The Christopher Boy’s Communion
BBC Radio 4

David Mamet’s new play, ably directed by Martin Jarvis (8 March), quickly reveals itself as a rip-snorting exercise in deceit, manipulation and interracial savagery. Why can’t Joan and Alan, a well-heeled Catholic couple first discovered in their swanky Manhattan apartment, attend the event of the title? Why, because their son Michael is currently in prison on a charge of murdering his Jewish girlfriend. Christopher and his family will have to wait.

So, if Joan gets her way, will justice. An interview with Mr Stone, the (initially) sympathetic Jewish lawyer (played by David Paymer) quickly discloses the lengths to which she is prepared to go. Having admitted her son’s guilt, insisted that the issue at stake is not what happened but what might free him, and also canvassed her contempt for the lawyer’s co-religionists, she crisply informs him that “We’re paying you to lie”. Stone having gracefully declined the honour of representing her, she transfers her attentions to blackening the dead girl’s character.