A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry's drama, in which a black family attempts to move into a white neighbourhood of Chicago in the 1950s, takes its title from a ­Langston Hughes poem that asks: "What ­happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" It's a ­hallowed text in America, where the most ­recent ­revival featured Sean "P Diddy" Combs in the central role of ­Walter Lee.

The first British production ­following the election of President Obama seems a good moment to ­reappraise a work whose dreams may be deferred no longer. In many respects, the play is as much a bygone relic as the South Side blues bars whose urban honky-tonk underscores Michael ­Buffong's ­brilliantly observed ­production. Its plot device of a ­sudden, life-changing ­inheritance shares ­similarities with Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock in ­demonstrating how, for a family ­hovering just above the poverty line, becoming richer than their wildest dreams can easily become a nightmare.

The work retains its power due to Hansberry's refusal to ­sentimentalise the situation. Walter may be a ­symbol of the black man's ­determination to overcome prejudice, but that doesn't prevent him from ­acting like a credulous fool. While the smart money would be on putting the ­insurance cheque into bricks and mortar and his sister Beneatha's medical career, he chooses to entrust it to an associate named Bobo, who ­immediately invests it in the bank of thin air.

Ellen Cairns's design is so meticulously detailed that the use of an antique roach-sprayer instils alarm that there may be antique roaches crawling beneath the seats. And there are pitch-perfect performances from Ray Fearon, who dwells on Walter's fecklessness as much as his dignity; and Jenny Jules and Tracy Ifeachor as the wife and sister who have to suffer the consequences. But the crowning contribution is a regal performance from Starletta DuPois as the matriarchal Lena, whose simple ambition to find a plot of earth for her withered pot plant seems to embody the aspirations of five generations of ­African-Americans to establish some roots. The point at which she finally embarks for her new home marked a small step in the development of the burgeoning civil rights movement. But it looks, too, like the first tread of the long march that would put a black man in the White House.