Theatre night:Poor Clare.

Clare (Arsema Thomas) lives in a very nice palazzo in 13th century Assisi where her and her younger sister, Beaatrice (Anushaka Chakrabarti), regularly have their feet washed and their hair braided by their unfailingly polite and obsequious servants Peppa and Alma (Liz Kettle and Jacoba Williams). With her impressive dowry, she is to be married off to a soldier of good breeding and live a life of luxury.

But she's not totally happy about this. When she falls in to the orbit of an idealistic young friar called Francis (Freddy Carter) she can't help wonder why he has turned his back on his own wealthy background, has renounced all possessions to serve God and help the poor, and has even had the audacity to torment the bishop by stripping off in front of him. Francis even dresses in sack cloth with a rope as a belt and has his hair shaved into a tonsure. 

In case you haven't worked it out yet it's Francis of Assisi and when we first meet him he's railing eloquently against inequality and for a radical redistribution of wealth. Like an even worse dressed Jeremy Corbyn or a more modest (and considerably poorer) Gary Stevenson. At first, Clare thinks she can help out by giving some of her goods to the poor (here represented by George Ormerod as a beggar) but in a series of engaging, fascinating, and often very funny, conversations with her sister, with her mother (Hermione Gulliford), and Francis himself, Clare comes to the conclusion that considerably more drastic measures are required.

Is Francis starting a cult? Is he genuinely as holy as he says he is? History has possibly already answered those questions and Chiara Atik's Poor Clare at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond doesn't aim for exacting historical accuracy, more for feel. The accents, of course, are wrong, the language isn't Italian, and modern slang is chucked out about as easily as mentions of the palio and trips to Gubbio.

It doesn't detract from the play. In fact it adds to it. Thomas as Clare and Carter as Francis are watchable from start to finish, the chemistry between them so strong you half expect them to start kissing, and when Clare fully embraces her new lifestyle we see just how deep in her heart she feels. Not for Francis, but for humanity. This, too, was a play that was, ultimately, about humanity and compassion and in our current times, times of genocide and war, that's a message that is worth repeating time and again. A minor classic from Chiara Atik.