HARRY POLLITT, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain until 1960, knew two devotions in his life: one to the party, the other to fellow member Rose Cohen.

This deeply researched and compelling new play from Francis Beckett, which charts Harry’s progress through the turbulent years from 1929 to the 1950s, premieres Upstairs at the Gatehouse for a short sell-out run with a further run from March 29 to April 2.

Pollitt is a man fuelled by anger. From a childhood stalked by poverty, through the untimely deaths of three beloved sisters and the unbearable working conditions of his mother, he emerges with an unswerving certainty that communism is the one way of overturning the world’s power structures. He spends his life chanting the mantra that he and his friend Joseph Stalin share together. “Hold the line,” they say. “Hold the line and bend for no-one.”