Four feet tall Benjamin Lay (1682-1759)was a Quaker who fell out with the movement over his campaigning against slavery. Born in Essex he became a sailor, lived in Barbados where he first discovered how the slaves were treated, and then moved to Pennsylvania where he proved a thorn in the flesh to the Quakers living there there. He worked at many trades, was very eccentric, eventually lived in a cave, published countless pamphlets and was disowned by his fellow Quakers. Mark Povinelli, himself a small person, delivers this fascinating monologue with great skill. Whether it adds up to a completely successful monologue is another matter - you really need to have read up about Lay before hand, as coming fresh to the story it takes time for the script Wallace and Rediker, an historian who wrote a book about Lay, have devised to really come to life. On the page it probably works but as drama it could perhaps have been better formed as Lay rants on about the injustices of slavery - even William Penn owned slaves. But Povinelli gives a terrific performance, stalking the stage, hectoring the audience, invading it to get the belt that secures the breast plate he dons at one point fastened, handing out pamphlets - the fourth wall is shattered - and ending bloodstained and battered but undefeated. The audience is in effect turned into a Quaker meeting confronted with a reality it does not wish to confront. The result is a story worth telling, one worth going to hear told. One can have doubts about whether Wallace and Rediker have come up with the perfect script - but Povinelli's performance in itself is a reason for going. In addition director Ron Daniels and designers Ricardo Hernandez and Isobel Nicolson have come up with an imaginative use of the Finborough space. In years of going there I have never seen the three windows which are housed in a bay overlooking the street which are invariably hidden either by seating or the back wall of a set. Here we get them with the evening light flooding in, and in front is a table, three chairs and a ladder up which, when telling of his life at sea, Povinelli climbs. Somehow the audience is transformed into Quakers hearing one of their fellows arguing his case against being expelled for his abolitionist crusades. It makes a disturbing lesson to learn that the great and the good of the past are not necessarily as we have been led to believe and the result is an enlightening story for our times. Maybe it should have been spellbinding theatre but one does leave shaken and enlightened - good theatre is not just about perfection, it is about challenges.

Mark Povinelli - Benjamin Lay.

Director - Ron Daniels; Set Designers - Ricardo Hernandez & Isobel Nicolson; Costume Designer - Isobel Nicolson; Lighting Designer - Anthony Doran; Sound Designer - John Leonard; Movement Consultant - Bill Irwin; Production photographs - Robert Boulton.