I've failed my friends abysmally recently, what with the restaurant situation thwarting my attendance at Lorraine's Experiment and then my pesky day job preventing me from seeing The Memory of Water (reportedly brilliant) and the always lovely Stantons this week.

When it comes to professionals gigs however, I've been spoilt.

I've just watched Flare Path, a play by Terence Rattigan. Now this is a writer I know almost nothing about, thanks in part to another great letting down incident years ago. And he appears to be performed a fair amount so this felt like an amply fed (or rather, totally starved) gap in my theatrical education.

I was sceptical about its worth, I must confess. Trevor Nunn was directing so I assumed it would be alright. But Sienna Miller was starring. And my recent Knightley experience has left me a little bitter and burnt when it comes to celebrity acting. But I need not have feared.

There were two real stars in this production. Actually, make that three. The play is fabulous. A proper story. Lots of (gentle) twists. Haystacks of understated (stiff upper lip) (World War Two RAF pilots) repressed emotion. A fun bunch of characters. And of course I love a war story so I was sucked in quite quickly.

Star Two. Mr Director. Helped by a gorgeous set that spilled over with furniture but you so didn't notice and it meant he could create such pretty pictures with his people that it didn't matter at all. And helped by an amazing little effect at the end of act one which showed you, hovering over the set, the various planes taking off on the last minute hazardous expedition. But neither of these things alter the fact that Mr Nunn did a really lovely job of wringing all of the not even pathos but genuine miserable tragedy out of the lives of these pretty ordinary people in the middle of a war.

Star Three. Should be Stars, plural. The actors did a tremendous job. Lovely characterisation. Helped by a script full of lovely characters. And Mr Billington is right. Sheridan Smith did a particularly captivating job of her working girl made good part. But I couldn't fault Sienna. The two main boys (Hadden-Paton and Purefoy) were excellent. And supported by a lovely set of cameos. No-one overacted and no-one threw any of it away. I snuffled my way through a good deal of act two and I'm always happiest when I'm having a good cry. So very very pleased with this night's entertainment.

And then barely a week and a half ago, I saw a play called Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris and directed by Dominic Cooke. My expectations for this were also low. A recommendation from someone whose opinion I'm not wholly sure about yet. But I had no better ideas and wanted to see something. So trotted along.

And hoorah. It was stupendous.

The plot isn't remarkable. 1950s America, nice white family, black servant whom they treat pretty appallingly. We laugh a little bit guiltily at the shameful behaviours because obviously, we would never behave like that - would we? Second act transfers to the modern day. Same neighbourhood. Black couple just moved into the white streets. Surely we should be behaving better now..?

But the play is elevated from being a lecture about the wrongs of racism by a handful of other subplots that knit together to serve up the point that we don't like people that are different. And we might not mean to but we tend to be pretty bad at keeping this to ourselves.

It all sounds desperately worthy but the beauty of the script (and this production of it) is that it's quick, witty and fairly skips through its polemics. So you don't even notice that you're being preached at.

It's also beautifully costumed, beautifully set (v clever overhauling of the house) and beautifully acted. I don't believe that there was a C list (or A list for that matter) celebrity among them.

For one happy night, I could slump back, swallow up the story and revel in a night of properly written, properly acted, properly polished theatre.

What a treat.