Ansu Kabia, Zoe-Wanamaker, Tom Bateman and John Dagleish in Harlequinade. Photo Johan Persson.

The work of Terrence Rattigan burst into my theatre-going conscience when Benedict Cumberbatch, Nancy Carroll and John Heffernan starred in After the Dance at the National Theatre five years ago. It signalled the beginning of a growing love of his plays for me and a revival of his work in theatre-land after decades of being out of fashion.

Harlequinade and All On Her Own, which are running as a double bill in Kenneth Branagh's season at the Garrick Theatre, demonstrate in sampler size the breadth of Rattigan's skill as a playwright. One of pieces is introspective and quietly sombre while the other is part farce, part satire.

The evening begins with All On Her Own, a monologue performed by Zoe Wanamaker who is a widow drinking to her husband on the anniversary of his death. At first she seems like a person who has embraced the new phase of her life but there is a growing anger and anxiety about the particulars surrounding his death.

She talks to her dead husband, knocking back whiskey and getting slowly sloshed which makes her more candid. She starts speaking for her husband and wills him to speak through her. It is a piece that reflects some of conflicted emotions of grief and the agony of questions left unasked.

Harlequinade is a far lighter affair. It follows a theatre company on the day of its opening night at an unglamourous provincial theatre. The production is Romeo and Juliet with married couple Arthur and Edna (Kenneth Brannagh and Miranda Raison) playing the leads despite being the wrong age. The company is on tour as part of a government-backed scheme to bring entertainment to populous in the lean years following the second world war and naturally they bring with them a West End mind set.