Ben Daniels in Man and Boy [Manuel Harlan]

TERENCE Rattigan’s 1963 play about the downfall of an international financier is certainly timely, and one can see why director Anthony Lau considered it ripe for revival.

Set in 1930s New York, during the Great Depression, the Romanian tycoon Gregor Antonescu (Ben Daniels) arrives at the Greenwich Village apartment of his estranged piano-playing son Basil Anthony (Laurie Kynaston), followed by his loyal assistant Sven Johnson (Nick Fletcher).

He arranges a meeting with businessman Mark Herries (Malcolm Sinclair) to discuss a potentially lucrative merger that would save his corrupt, crumbling empire.

Having discovered the American’s interest in men, he offers his own son as bait.

When the deal collapses as a result of his unscrupulous practices, and Antonescu sees his fortune evaporate, he’s transformed into a cornered rat, forced into a series of increasingly desperate actions.

Georgia Lowe’s green baize carpet suggests a snooker hall, with characters ricocheting off one another like balls in play.

The cast list projected on a screen on one side of the stage, lighting up like film credits each time someone enters, is a neat touch.

Yet the use of tables – shoved together and apart, leapt on and over by the actors – in Lau’s intermittently stylised staging is distracting.

Daniels delivers a suitably reptilian performance as a master manipulator, while Kynaston’s turn as his well-meaning but emotionally damaged son with conflicting loyalties provides an effective foil.

Some supporting roles, though, feel either surplus to requirements or too sketchily drawn to make an impact.

The production is unevenly paced and lacks cumulative tension, although there’s no denying the power of Daniels’ portrayal, which drives Man and Boy inexorably towards its conclusion.

Until March 14
nationaltheatre.org.uk