The play never builds into an all-out attack on capitalism, however: indeed, its pessimism suggests that there are social ills beyond the reach of political remedy "Whatever you give the poor, they destroy it. How, it asks, can you retain any sense of human connectedness in a world that trains you routinely to ignore the supplications of the poor on the streets and to avoid even looking at anyone on public transport as a chance glance may be interpreted as an invitation to violence. And when, towards the end of the play, two characters start smashing up the back wall of the stalls with crowbars, fiction blurs potently with forthcoming reality. Restlessly shifting from the top of skyscraper, say, to the depths of a dead-end hotel, Korder's kaleidoscopic drama benefits greatly from the multi-level staging. Reversing the normal geography, the audience is positioned on stage while the actors perform the piece on all the different levels of the auditorium. The calculated clash between the faded charm of the Court's fittings and the glass-walled modernity of Jeremy Herbert's installation-like set creates the weird sensation that this both is and isn't the view that Olivier et al saw from up here. This is the Royal Court as you've never seen it before and as you'll never see it again.

Conscious that Howard Korder's The Lights is the last play to be staged here before the theatre closes for renovation, director Ian Rickson alters your bearings on the place so as to give you a sharper sense of a ghost-haunted building caught between its past and its future. Some of his most famous works, including the operas Peter Grimes, Billy Budd and Noye's Fludde, are set on the Suffolk coast.He underwent heart surgery in 1973 and never fully recovered. He died in December 1976, six months after he had was made Baron Britten of Aldeburgh in the Queen's Birthday Honours.. It is dreadful that such a great man should be subjected to such an apparent snub."Britten was born in 1913 and moved to Aldeburgh after the end of the Second World War. There is a blue plaque on the side of the house where he lived and a window dedicated to him in the parish church."John Richardson, a member of Suffolk Coastal district council, said he had been surprised by the town council's reaction. But it had later emerged that Britten had not wanted such a tribute, he said.However, a local Britten historian, who asked not to be named, observed: "There seems to be a feeling among council members that his contribution to the town was highly debatable."Just because he wasn't born and bred here and didn't live here all the time, they doubt his value. We have just spent pounds 12,000 on a new play area which is of more practical benefit to the town and its people than a statue or bust."We are not anti-Britten, but if there is money available councillors felt that there were other things to spend it on which would be of greater benefit to the town and its people."There are already several things to commemorate him in the town.