Almost three decades ago, Bill Kenwright had his first West End hit with Clifford Odets’ The Country Girl at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, featuring Martin Shaw as the hotshot director of a new Broadway play.

This autumn, Kenwright will present the same play in the same theatre, with the same star – only this time Shaw is playing the role of theatrical great Frank Elgin, starring alongside his Judge John Deed co-star, Jenny Seagrove, Kenwright’s wife, incidentally.

Written in 1950 and later made into a film with Grace Kelly, William Holden and Bing Crsoby, The Country Girl finds washed-up, alcoholic actor Frank Elgin (Shaw) being offered a comeback chance to star in the next Broadway production by outwardly cocky young director Bernie Dodd (Mark Letheren).

Frank’s first steps will be out of town, in Boston, where the Country Girl of the title, his long-suffering but still supportive wife Georgie (Seagrove), follows him. Mistrustful Bernie believes that Georgie is the reason for Elgin’s career decline, cursing her as “the witch on the broom”, and a stormy battle for control of Frank ensues between the two of them, wherein control keeps shifting.

Seagrove gives the stand-out turn of Rufus Norris’s well-dressed but slow and earnest portrait of a great actor coming to terms with his mortal demons. Shaw, by comparison, is still honing his cliff-edge role; you sense more power is yet to emerge before he and Seagrove take to the West End stage for the first time together. Letheren’s Dodd could be more obsessive.

All in all, this is surprisingly glum journey into a dark soul feeling its way for the redemptive light.

The Country Girl, Leeds Grand Theatre, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 848 2706.