Sometimes exterior events can impinge on a trip to the theatre.

By the time I arrived in the west end last night I was in a mood due to something happening during the day and I was greeted with a glum Owen who had spent so long trying to find the Vaudeville Theatre that he had no time to find something to nosh for dinner - and it was raining.

Not really the best background to see the Almeida revival of Tom Kempinski's DUET FOR ONE which is playing at the elusive Vaudeville Theatre with Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman.

The play has not been seen in the west end since 1981 when it played at the Duke of Yorks with Frances de la Tour and David de Keyser. Kempinski wrote the play while married to de la Tour and he certainly wrote her a barnstorming role for which she won the first of her three Society of West End Theatre Awards. It is the classic fringe play success - it opened at the Bush Theatre in Shepherds Bush in 1980 and quickly moved to the west end where it stayed for a year. It didn't fare too well in New York with Anne Bancroft and Max von Sydow - it only lasted 20 performances! - but at least von Sydow got to reprise the role in the 1986 film with Julie Andrews in the lead role.

It's a bit surprising it has taken over 25 years to reappear as it does feature a stonking female role but I guess Frances de la Tour lingered still in the collective memory and I could hear her dolorous tones still. Matthew Lloyd's production does have the distinct advantage of having two actors who can hold their own with the best.

Juliet Stevenson plays Stephanie, the high-flying violinist who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and Henry Goodman plays Dr. Feldmann, the analyst her offstage husband has suggested she visit to deal with her depressions. Stephanie confronts Feldmann with a clear-eyed brashness - she is ill, she understands that... her life will be different but she can teach students or help her composer husband with his work. Feldmann however is not so easily brushed off and senses the underlying anger that her polished exterior is struggling to hide.

Prescribing a treatment of medication he ensures she will revisit to report on it's progress and soon her carapace cracks and the real Stephanie starts to appear... angry, caustic, despairing, frightened. She lacerates Feldmann with her anger which he refuses to respond to, just probing deeper into her past, her musician mother who died early and the abusive father who refused to believe in her talent.

You could tell Stevenson and Goodman have been playing the roles for some time. They are very comfortable in their character's skins and I wondered occasionally whether it would have been more effective to see it early in it's run at the Almeida when there might have been more uncertainty in their playing. As Jude Law said a few days back "The play's the thing" and at times the play seemed to be marking time before the ultimate obvious ending but Lloyd kept the balance between the protagonists taut even if the argument sometimes wandered.

Lez Brotherston's set perfectly conjured up the analyst's study and the visual wardrobe clues to Stephanie's descent into despair through the play were finely chosen. Juliet Stevenson gave a monumental, fiercely intelligent performance slowly coming apart before reaching an acceptance and Henry Goodman - apart from a rather embarrassing moment when he started bouncing around the floor - made their scenes a real duet. I wonder if it will be another 28 years before it's staged again?