Mrs Lowry & Son

L. S. Lowry collects rents in Salford by day and paints at night. He draws factory chimneys, streets and crowds, and renders people as long, thin figures. At home is his bedridden mother Elizabeth. She is in mourning for a life she believes she lost, and both belittles her son's pictures and works at stopping him painting at all. Lowry never gets her approval and never once considers leaving her. Adrian Noble directs, adapting Martyn Hesford's play, and it plays out almost entirely with two actors in one house. Vanessa Redgrave is Elizabeth and Timothy Spall is Lowry. Ninety-one minutes.