Cool Hand Luke at the Aldwych Theatre, WC2

If, as some say, it is often women who drag weary men to expensive West End theatres, this premiere could be the show to turn the tables. It is, in no derogatory sense, one for the guys. For decades before The Shawshank Redemption there was Cool Hand Luke, the definitive US jail movie. It sprang from real experience: Donn Pearce wrote the novel after doing time in Florida and soaking up a chain-gang mythology of the cool guy, the hero convict.

His Luke (Marc Warren, best known from Hustle and Mad Dogs on TV) is not an innocent, but guilty