New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme
Ambitious adaptation of Powell and Pressburger’s romantic fantasy is intelligently rendered, with well-chosen music added to the period mix

The propaganda brief for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger on A Matter of Life and Death was to come up with a film to help smooth postwar relations between Britain and the US. We could certainly do with a bit of that now, although to fix our current impasse would probably take more than a love affair between a fated British fighter pilot and a steely American radio operator.

It is a metaphysical story in which the life of Peter Carter (Thomas Dennis in the David Niven role) hangs on a heavenly court case and the love of June (Kaylah Copeland), whom he meets only after falling from the skies without a parachute. If this stage adaptation does not explain why we should revisit a story so deeply rooted in an era of loss, grief and reconciliation, it is no less intelligent and ambitious for it.

At the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme , until 19 April