Park theatre, London
Cassie Bradley and Barney White are vulnerable, brittle and finally tender as Violet and Leonard, in Nick Payne’s love story moving through decades

Writer Nick Payne excels at capturing the shape and hue of a romance across time. One couple stutters through the non-linear span of their relationship in his play Constellations, while another travels back and forth across a decade in his screenplay for We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

Here is another love story, originally staged in 2011. We initially meet Leonard (Barney White) and Violet (Cassie Bradley) in 1942, in a hotel room in Bath, with the intimacy of bare skin and bedclothes. A shyly ardent romance is commencing but stalled by war: this is the apprehensive night before Leonard leaves for the frontline. The pair plan to marry and have a life together afterwards, however long it takes.

At Park theatre, London, until 22 March