Christopher Gray enjoys a performance of the Errol John play

Errol John’s remarkable picture of Trinidadian life, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, has been too little seen in the half century and more since it was first staged (and screened — those being the days when television still bothered with plays). Three cheers, then, for the excellent new production — from the Black-led Talawa Theatre Company in association with the National Theatre — which tours this week to Oxford Playhouse.

The focus is a slum backyard in Port of Spain (designer Soutra Gilmour) in the immediate post-war years. This was as John knew it in his early 20s before leaving — like a growing number of his contemporaries — to begin a new life in Britain.

We are shown many of his feelings and experiences, surely, in the portrait of disenchanted trolley bus driver Ephraim (Ozekie Morro) who does just that. And who can blame him? “Why do they shout?” he is asked as another ruction erupts in the yard. “To ease the tension of living like hogs,” he replies.

A ticket to Liverpool is his passport out, though this will mean abandoning girlfriend Rosa (Alisha Bailey) to the tender mercies of the infatuated old goat Mack (Burt Caesar), her boss and the local property magnate.

Rosa’s cause is pleaded by neighbour Sophia Adams (Martina Laird), a good sort mother-of-two with a feckless husband, a despondent ex-cricketer (Jude Akuwudike), to contend with. That one of their children (Tahira Sharif) is nudging her teens and the other a babe in arms contributes to the play’s initial confusions over who is related to whom (as for a while does the strength of the West Indian dialects on parade).

But all is very soon sorted out in this clear and eminently unsentimental production under director Michael Buffong. Grim as the action is, there is much humour on the way, a lot supplied by the local ‘lady of easy virtue’ Mavis (Bethan Mary James).

Moon on a Rainbow Shawl
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
Tickets: 01865 305305