Sinclair is something of an expert. He’s directed Lorca’s “Blood Wedding” and Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” for the Sydney Theatre Company, Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” at the new Eternity Theatre off Oxford Street, and an adaptation of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” at the Stables Theatre, not long after he arrived in Sydney from Canberra.

There’s a big payoff in directing classics, Sinclair tells me: “It teaches me the value of efficiency and plain honesty in an industry more and more enamoured with ironic bells and whistles”.

Dramatised for the stage by John Steinbeck himself from the celebrated novella, “Of Mice and Men” is set in the Great Depression. The story focuses on two displaced migrant workers, George and Lennie, and their dream of one day owning their own piece of land.

To stage such a deceptively simple work as “Of Mice and Men” you need a special director and Canberrans already know Sinclair’s value. Happily raised in the Canberra theatre scene, Sinclair is quick to acknowledge the influences of his home town.

“I started my career in Canberra so it’s a wonderful thing to come back with a show I’m so proud of,” Sinclair tells “CityNews”, reminiscing about the livewires he worked with, including directors such as John Spicer, Ralph Wilson and Carol Woodrow, contemporaries such as David Branson, David Atfield, Lucy Taylor and Jonathan Gavin, and his mates in Elbow Theatre, the ensemble he formed with Ken Spiteri, Simon Clarke and playwright Mary Rachel Brown.

“Of Mice and Men” also features another Canberran, John McNeil, who plays Carlson and, Sinclair reports, “we both often reminisce with great warmth of our days doing shows at Canberra Rep”.

But it’s a sad reality that most of our best and brightest still have to leave the ACT to have a career in theatre.

“It’s embarrassing that our national capital doesn’t have a national standard, full-time professional theatre company yet,” he laments.

“It’s a shame because the city has such a particular and extraordinary quality that should be shared.”

“Of Mice and Men”, The Playhouse, August 6-8, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.