Rob likes the view from Miller's bridge

The New York drama A View From The Bridge runs in Harrogate from this weekend until February 17, and Rob Swain's production then goes on the road nationally in a continuation of Harrogate's policy of touring great plays of the late 19th and 20th century.

After Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit and Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest in the past two years, artistic director Swain moves away from English comedy to American hard graft.

"I've loved Arthur Miller plays for years but it takes a long time to get the rights to do a Miller tour. He'll accept his plays being done in one place or one place then a two-week tour, but nothing more! So it took some persuading," says Rob. "For us, it needed his American agent to go in and interrupt Miller in a rehearsal for him to say 'yes', and I'm delighted he has relented!"

Set in 1950s' Brooklyn, A View From The Bridge depicts a world where love, honour and jealousy mean more than life itself, as the American Dream is scratched and then shattered in the story of Eddie Carbone, the proud docker who carves out a living in Brooklyn's Italian immigrant community

"The play was on the Royal National Theatre's list last year as one of the 100 great plays of the 20th century, and rightly so as it's such an intense mix of epic American drama and Greek tragedy," says Rob. "It's so beautifully yet powerfully written, and I look upon Eddie Carbone as being this extraordinary King Lear-like character, who fails through one flaw."

Swain was drawn to A View From The Bridge partly through his fixation since teenage days with doomed, flawed characters and partly through the play's contemporary resonance. "Eddie was an Italian immigrant working in the New York docks, and now we have this rumbling debate in this country about asylum seekers and what our moral position should be. I'm sure it's going to be a persistent Election issue," he says.

For tickets, ring 01423 502116.