Father and daughter team adds fuel to familial fire in play of ideas

If you’ve ever wondered why Australia’s last remaining pub theatre – tucked in the basement of Woolloomooloo’s Old Fitzroy Hotel – would run a ‘late-night’ series of shows alongside its main season of plays, look no further than this 9pm offering.

A Number, by acclaimed British playwright Caryl Churchill, has a run time of just 60 minutes and doesn’t follow conventional narrative arcs, making it difficult to slot into main theatre seasons. It’s something we may never see in Sydney if not for its home in a later time slot, when it layers a few props and a new seating configuration over the set of the main season show Scenes from a Friendship, which plays before it every night at 7pm.

There’s clearly a hunger in Sydney for something a little riskier that can only come out late at night: this production sold out before it even opened.