Theatre Review: As You Like It (RSC, 2026)

*review contains mild spoilers* 

To liberty! Somehow I haven't seen As You Like It on stage for 20 years - not since Dominic Cooke's RSC staging, with Lia Williams as Rosalind, Barnaby Kay as Orlando and Joe Mydell as Jaques, when it transferred to London in 2006. Never a favourite Shakespeare comedy of mine (Twelfth Night, seen multiple times over the years, takes that crown), As You Like It isn't, clearly, a play that I usually go out of my way to catch. But I remember Cooke's production fairly fondly.

‎Daniel Evans' new RSC production is something else, though - one to turn even AYLI sceptics into devotees. Fleet, fond, hilarious, beautifully designed by Anisha Fields, lit with flair by Ryan Day, and acted to the hilt by an all-male ensemble comprising RSC veterans and newbies, the production is bliss, and I hardly stopped smiling through its 2 hours 40 minutes. 

Actually, I don't think I've loved a Shakespeare show quite this much since the glory days of Propeller, whose work is evoked here not only in the single-sex set-up but also in the mix of reverence for the language, anarchic spirit, and moments of pure beauty.

‎Evans starts the proceedings not with the play's none-too-scintillating opening scene but rather with an unexpected jolt. Jonathan Groff's Rosalind is thrown right into a stark, threatening patriarchal world - a court, presided over by Gary Wilmot's grim-faced Duke, that's already banished our heroine's father and is soon to propose the same fate for her.

Rehearsal photo: Marc Brenner

‎In this context, the decision of Ros and her beloved cousin Celia to flee to the forest seems a no-brainer, but not before the former's fallen hard for Elliot Barnes-Worrell's Orlando (she's not the only character to do so, either, in this account) - after he's demonstrated his prowess in the wrestling ring.

‎The transition from the discordant, oppressive atmosphere of the court (literally a black-and-white world in Fields' design)  to the lush, liberating greenery of the forest can seldom have been accomplished more sensuously than it is here - with the usurped good Duke (Wilmot again, now wild-haired and bare-chested) introduced rolling on the ground in pagan glee.

‎In a nod to Evans' heritage, this idyllic Arden is Cymru, and Welsh song is threaded thrillingly through the action. Composer/arranger Theo Jamieson outdoes himself with beautiful arrangements that encapsulate the production's delicate but robust tone, and the cast's singing is gorgeous. 

‎In his male guise as Ganymede, Groff's  Rosalind doesn't don the mentioned "doublet and hose," but instead sports fetching hiking gear. With a glowing countenance, a relaxed air, and dark locks now sun bleached, our heroine definitely seems in her natural element in Arden. 

‎Groff seems in his element as a performer, too. From Vanessa Redgrave's youthful triumph to Geraldine James's recent elder take, the role of Rosalind has been a revelatory one for plenty of British actresses -  but not for (m)any American actors in their forties.

‎However, though surely no-one expected Groff to make his long-overdue return to the British stage in this particular part, he does so with an assurance and gusto that's exhilarating to witness. 

‎It's 16 years since his West End debut in Deathtrap, and in that time Groff has developed into a very deep and special stage artist indeed. Here he makes his first foray into Shakespeare with the confidence of a veteran, and everything he does feels true, inspired, open, delightful.

‎Along with Patsy Rodenburg's voice coaching, maybe Groff's experience in musicals has helped him to find the rhythm of the verse with such clarity and skill. Whatever, he's incredibly quick and physical too - whether bouncing up and down with glee at the prospect of Orlando's arrival (the chemistry with Barnes-Worrell is electric)  or relishing the mix of smart-alecky wit and tender lovestruck longing that makes Rosalind such a rich role. Aided by costume designer Colin Richmond's inspired creations, the trajectory of Groff's performance - from the fear of the opening scene to the graced joy of the finale - is glorious. 

‎Like Josh O'Connor's equally great work in the Almeida's current Golden Boy, Groff's performance here is in no sense a star turn, though. From Fisayo Akinade's wry, watchful Celia - what a hilarious, affectionate double act the two make - to Richard McCabe, who manages to make something fresh and quietly devastating of a very queer Jaques' Seven Ages of Man speech, this is a fully inhabited production in which everyone gets a chance to shine.  

Thanks to Tim Preston's magnificently bossy Phoebe and Edward Judge's adorably lumbering Silvius, the secondary amorous muddles are much more entertaining than usual, too. A relationship I'd hardly noticed in previous productions - that between Orlando  and his elderly servant Adam (Gareth Snook) - also emerges as a beautifully touching cross-generational bond. ‎And you definitely won't forget Snook's gleeful second role as the shepherdess Audrey - beehive hair, boots and all - especially when he's waggling tongues with Greg Haiste's smitten "noble fool" Touchstone, or when his eccentric raiment meets a barnstorming Raye moment.

Such riotous touches ensure big laughs, but overall there's a deep love and kindness in this production - you feel it in the way every character is played and treated.‎ Looking around during the final dance sequence, I couldn't help but wish that the diversity of the cast was more fully reflected in the audience, since if any production could change hearts and minds about Shakespeare then this is surely the one. In any case, this is a totally enchanting evening best summed up in the words of Akinade's Celia: ‎"Wonderful, wonderful and most wonderful, wonderful and yet again .... wonderful. " 

As You Like It is booking at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until 7 November. Further information here. 

Review of Winter of the Crow in Sight and Sound (November 2026)

My review of Kasia Adamik's Winter of the Crow is in the November 2026 issue of Sight and Sound. More about the issue here. 

Theatre Review: Kimberly Akimbo (Hampstead Theatre)

Whether it's a coincidence or not, the handful of musicals that have meant the most to me over the past 20 years or so have all been by male/female writer/composer teams. Who knows - maybe there's something about the combination of perspectives and energies that gives Wicked, Caroline, or Change and The Light Princess their incredible, individual beauty and power.

Caroline's brilliant and original composer, Jeanine Tesori, again teams with a male playwright, David Lindsay-Abaire, on Kimberly Akimbo, which arrives in London after Broadway and Tony success. It's not this duo's first rodeo: they previously worked together on Shrek: The Musical. Kimberly, though, is a very different project: an intimate work, broadly similar to Caroline in its domestic settings and focus on working-class characters' struggles and strivings, and based on Lindsay-Abaire's 2001 play of the same name.

The show, which is not sung-through, doesn't, finally, approach Caroline's amazing reach and complexity. Lindsay-Abaire is not the writer Tony Kushner is at his best, and here difficult, complicated emotions often end up getting too easily smoothed over by "smiley face", in the show's own parlance. 

 

Still, Michael Longhurst's pleasing production has much to recommend it, especially the work of a delightful cast, headed by Maria Friedman, in a much-anticipated return to the stage after her successful recent years of directing. "I hope you start doing roles again and come back to doing theatre," Jonathan Groff said to Friedman two years ago in this gorgeous and inspiring conversation about their Merrily We Roll Along collaboration (and much more besides) below. 

What's especially lovely is that Friedman hasn't returned in a musical that demands diva-ish grandstanding. Rather, it's one that gives her the opportunity to do what she does best: show her special skills as a company player and fully inhabit an original character through song. 

The show's sparkling opening number, "Skater Planet" - one of its best: funny, perky but poignant (and how many opening songs get you reaching for the dictionary in their first lines - or maybe you already knew what a Zamboni is...) - sets us down at a Bergen County, New Jersey ice rink, established as a safe and happy space for a group of small-town teenage misfits.

On the fringes of the group, waiting for her tardy Dad to collect her, is Kimberly Levaco, a new girl recently moved into town from Lodi with her parents. Kimberly's burden is a rare and challenging one: she has a genetic condition that causes premature ageing and, at 15, she looks closer to 70. The plot centres on her negotiations of traditional teenage issues - parental conflict, a first romance - with those specific to her appearance and knowledge of her brutally limited life expectancy. 

On a compact yet slightly fussy Soutra Gilmour set, Longhurst's production spins us from the aforementioned ice rink, to Kimberly's split-level family home, from garage to school corridor, from hospital to wildlife park. Lindsay-Abaire's plot - involving the return of Kimberly's shady Aunt Debra, keen to rope her niece's new friends into a money-making scam - is more than a little screwy, and it feels like it could have developed in a dozen more rewarding ways than it does; a late-ish revelation about why the family left Lodi is a low point.

But Longhurst, a very sensitive director, helps the cast find the right emotional notes through the songs. These include Kimberly's "Make a Wish" - as unabashed an "I Want" number as you've ever heard in a show - and "Anagram," which interweaves her interior monologue about her feelings for her new friend Seth with his attempts to make an anagram of her name. Then there's the generic but irresistibly joyful first-half closer "This Time," which brings all the characters back to the rink for Kimberly's 16th birthday celebration. 

Mixing pop, rock, soul, lullaby and light classical elements, Tesori's unpredictable tunes don't spoon-feed the audience, which makes them all the more rewarding, especially as Lindsay-Abaire's lyrics - strongest at their most specific - sometimes tilt towards general uplift and 'seize the day' affirmations.

The music deepens the characters, though, including those like Kimberly's parents who initially seem to be uncaring comic foils, but who Peter Hannah, as the drunk, confrontational Dad, and Niamh Perry, as the pregnant Mum recording video messages for her unborn child (because "I might be dead soon!!!") gradually invest with a few finer feelings. 

Alice Fearn gets the lion's share of the laughs as the criminally-inclined Aunt, and her outlining of her modus operandi in "Better" is a show-stopping highlight. Relishing Matt Cole's choreography, the younger cast members also acquit themselves brilliantly, with Gilli Jones adorable as Seth - ice rink worker and wordsmith - and Ronav Jain, Aviva Tulley, Sara Hajizadeh and Robin Simões da Silva vivacious and hilarious as the chorus of misfit teens - even if an "unrequited love" running gag gets a bit too cute. 

And Friedman invests even the fake-poignant moments with genuine emotion, delivering a beautiful, open-hearted and totally fresh performance. Aided by Gilmour's great costumes - dig that Labyrinth sweater! - Friedman doesn't play a generalised "teen" but an individual, whose awkward slouch may equally indicate adolescence or older age.

Her Kimberly is kind, eager and perceptive but with a core of set-apartness; when she challenges her friends, revealing how she sees them, at the end of "Our Disease" - a class-presentation novelty song turned lacerating - it's genuinely upsetting, the rawest, most discordant moment in a musical that's sometimes too keen to resort to feel-good homilies. Kimberly Akimbo is flawed, and it definitely won't be for those who like their musicals huge and glossy. But Longhurst's production finds the strengths of the show's tribute to seeing things "a little bit askew," and boasts a radiant central performance that goes straight to the heart. 

Kimberly Akimbo is booking at Hampstead Theatre until 7 November. Further information here. 

Production photos by Marc Brenner. 

Theatre Review: Electra/Persona (Lyttelton, National Theatre)

 

‎*review contains some spoilers*

‎"Few film 'classics' still feel so modern," wrote David Thompson about Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966), the prickly, enigmatic modernist jewel released 60 years ago this year, and voted the 18th 'Greatest Film of All Time' in the last Sight and Sound poll.

‎As much as it has a theatrical root - exploring the complicated, symbiotic relation between a silent actress, Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann), and the garrulous nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), who takes care of her after Elisabeth breaks down on stage during a performance of Electra and stops speaking - Persona is deeply and self-consciously cinematic, with its "burning-up-celluloid" effect and other jarring, experimental elements. So much so that Bergman once apparently thought to title the film "A Piece of Cinematography."

‎All of that surely makes Persona quite an unlikely candidate for a theatrical adaptation. But Benedict Andrews' new production, just opened at the National Theatre's Lyttelton, rises to the challenge in ways that, for this viewer at least, exceeded expectations. 

‎I've so far not been a fan of Andrews' productions, which have mostly felt abrasive, with set designs by Magda Willi that don't so much enhance the plays as just offend the eye.

‎But this new project seems to play to Andrews' strengths in many ways. The elaborate "cine-theatre" trappings, and Willi's imposing but unfussy set of sheer pine steps, create an elegant space for an exploration of blurring identities and enduring maternal angst.

‎Mostly, though, the production's asset is its pair of great actresses at the top of their game. Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss don't eclipse their iconic screen predecessors, but they find new ways into the roles, and bring a rich shared history to the stage.

‎As the show's title suggests, Andrews' innovation here is to supplement his version of the film with a staging of the play that Elisabeth is performing in during her opening moment of "break down." Electra takes up around 50 minutes of the production's interval-free 2 hour 10 running time, and seems very much inspired by Andrews' recent work on The Oresteia in Reykjavik.

‎

‎And the production's other major conceit - borrowed, probably, from Robert Icke's Mary Stuart of a decade or so ago - is to have the two leads swap roles on different nights, the decision made by a coin toss at the top of the show.  (If you're in or around stalls seat A22, you might even end up being the lucky punter who gets to flip the coin.)

‎On the night I attended, Blanchett was Electra/Elisabeth and Hoss  Clytemnestra/Alma. The cast is completed by Patrick Robinson, on hand to essay two extremely thankless roles as Aegisthus in Electra and Elisabeth's unnamed husband in Persona; and Ella Lily Hyland who gets a bit more to do as Chrysothemis/Doctor - and an occasional Bergman-like narrator.

‎Moreover, as if they didn't both have enough on their plates already, Hoss and Blanchett also essentially get to play Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist, too.  During the transition between the Electra and Persona sections, a large screen drops centre stage, and - camera in hand - the actresses themselves proceed to do most of the live filming that's presented on it.

‎A fairly heady brew, then. But the production keeps the proceedings fluid, flowing. 

‎As Electra, Blanchett starts out at an extraordinarily high emotional pitch, as she clambers up the steps, groaning in grief, and repeating phrases ("Makes me sick!" "Blood for blood!"). There's brutal wit in the portrayal too, and, hammer in hand, Blanchett's physical and vocal inhibition makes her retreat into silence as Elisabeth in the second half all the more effective.

‎Hoss, as Clytemnestra, finds impatience, defensiveness and some surprising maternal love in the character. The set of steps - strewn with costumes as Electra forces the other characters into role-playing the family drama - gives a ceremonial air to the mother/daughter tussle,  even as Andrews' version keeps things loose and contemporary (sometimes cringe-makingly so: Electra's description of Aegisthus as Clytemnestra''s "fuckboy"). 

‎Following the nicely accomplished transition into Persona - with crew emerging to clean the stage - Blanchett's work  with the camera proves especially expressive,  whether she's filming herself in ravaged proximity as Elisabeth hides under Clytemnestra's coat  - Bergman's probing close-ups meet contemporary selfie culture here - or peering down from the screen as Hoss brilliantly and breathlessly delivers Alma's notorious erotic monologue - a suggestion of Elisabeth's parasitic, vampiric tendencies.

‎Andrews' effort to make mother/daughter relationships a throughline of the show means changing the sex of Elisabeth's neglected child in this account; he also quite effectively incorporates Bergman's original ending over the not-too-satisfying filmed one. Otherwise, many of the film's events are recreated fairly faithfully. The production's attempts to duplicate the ghostly doublings and superimpositions of Nykvist's cinematography are sometimes effective, sometimes forced. And there's the occasional recourse to stale "cine-theatre" cliché, like the inevitable filmed dash out of the auditorium that here finds Blanchett's mute Elisabeth artfully posed by a "Silence!" sign.

Ullmann and Blanchett (Photo by Brigette Lacombe)

But there are many dazzling moments too. And, importantly, this staging also has layers, unspoken but nonetheless felt: of Howard Davies' great production of Mourning Becomes Electra in this auditorium some 23 years ago; of Blanchett's loving association with Liv Ullmann on A Streetcar Named Desire; of her parallel histories of certain stage roles with Hoss; and, of course, of the actresses' collaboration as a creative couple in Todd Field's magnificent Tár (2022). (That film's composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir, is another returning collaborator here, adding primal ambience.)

Hoss and Blanchett in Tár

Electra/Persona is an intense, strange, compelling hybrid: measured yet pacy; part cinema, part theatre; pretentious but emotionally accessible, too. Whether you view the switching up of roles as a vital extension of the themes of duality, or just as a gimmick, it makes taking a chance on revisiting the production a tempting prospect, to see what each actress makes of the other part. I for one definitely wouldn't say no.

Electra/Persona is booking at the  National Theatre until 10 October. It's sold out but tickets are still available through Friday Rush. Further details here. 

WYWROTY/SUBVERSIONS: on the 15th International Retroperspektywy Theatre Festival, Łódź (20-30 August, 2026)

"I didn't know who I was supposed to be...at fifteen," sang Taylor Swift, about two decades ago. Retroperspektywy Festival, by contrast, seems notably secure in its identity as it reaches that same birthday this year, even as the festival continues to grow, expand, adapt, evolve. 

Audience watching The Tiger Lillies concert

Disruptive, punky spirit, embracing warmth, social concern, intellectual depth, drive to experiment, and sheer playfulness and fun remain the characteristics of one of Łódź's most exciting and vital cultural events, which combines theatre shows and concerts with workshops, "happenings," exhibitions, DJ sets, dance, discussions, and more. 

Tomasz Rodowicz in Konferencja ptaków

This year, the festival takes "Wywroty,"  or "Subversions" or "Upheavals," as its title. The idea is to work "against the limitations, closures, blockages and manipulations that currently exist on all fronts," in the words of Tomasz Rodowicz, Artistic Director of Teatr CHOREA, Retroperspektywy's founder. 

Ola Shaya

According to Rodowicz, the intention of this year's edition - one that resonates with the festival each year, really - is "to open people up, to burst bubbles" through, as main programmer Ola Shaya puts it, the creation of "communal experiences where the divide between artist and audience dissolves." 

Konferencja ptaków

The festival opened in characteristically bold fashion with Konferencja ptaków (Conference of the Birds), a welcome reunion for CHOREA and the crazy genius of director Łukasz Kos, whose  collaboration on Śmierć na gruszy (Death on a Pear Tree) made for a startling start to the festival's 2021 edition. Based on Farid ud-Din Attar's 12th-century Persian poem, which was notably adapted for the theatre in the 1970s by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière, Konferencja ptaków was slightly less anarchic than the previous collaboration but still wild enough, drawing on both the poem and Brook's dramatisation, and starting out as a species of delirious avian rave. 

Konferencja ptaków

Throughout, live music and sound effects by Maciej Maciaszek added atmosphere and texture, complementing the kinetic energy and dreamy beauty of the recorded and live camera work by Kamil Wallace Walesiak. CHOREA's commitment to finding contemporary and enduring resonances in ancient texts was very much in evidence in this account of the epic quest of the Birds to meet a legendary, winged king. 

 

Konferencja ptaków

Another layer was added to the performance by the strongly-felt spirit of one of CHOREA's signature shows After the Birds, including in the presence of some returning cast members. Rodowicz, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Joanna Chmielecka, Małgorzata Lipczyńska and Paweł Smagała formed a superlative ensemble, alongside memorable cameos from Wallace Walesiak and Kos himself. 

PlastSupper

A second striking addition to the opening night was Mi­cha­li­na Ko­stec­ka and Do­mi­ni­ka So­bo­lew­ska's PlastSupper, a culinary installation, its title a religious pun, evoking the vexed relation between humans and plastic, especially as it has entered the food chain. As white-clothed servers proffered coloured pasta and other delicacies at a ceremonial table to the sound of Marta Kluba's musical compositions, a surreal, ironic feast worthy of a Peter Greenaway cinematic tableau developed. 

Jan Ma­żew­ski's Kół­ko Gra­nia­ste

A more traditional but equally compelling exhibit opened downstairs at Fabryka Sztuki in the form of Jan Ma­żew­ski's “Kół­ko Gra­nia­ste” ("Square Circle"), a set of acrylic on canvas paintings evoking childhood imagination, solitude and moments of connection. I felt pulled back to these paintings again and again; Ma­żew­ski's work created a contemplative space to return to: modest, soulful, and very beautiful. A festival regular, DJ Papa Bo Selektah, meanwhile, delivered a fantastic set to close the opening night. 

DJ Papa Bo Selektah

Saturday's events took place across a trio of venues that, just like Fotofestiwal a couple of months ago, freshly revealed the dynamism and creativity of Łódź's revitalised spaces. 

Lament/ر ِ ﺛﺎء” 

Despite currently undergoing renovation work, the festival's usual centre of Fabryka Sztuki still remained open for performances. It hosted, among others, Lament/ر ِ ﺛﺎء” , Aurora Lubos's haunting show inspired by the destruction in Gaza. This found Lubos picking her way back and forth across a miniature set of destroyed, smoking buildings, her movements variously expressing grief, despair, and defiance. 

Labyrinth

A tonal contrast was offered in next door's Fuzja complex, which hosted Fabian Krestel's Labyrinth, an absolutely delightful interactive mix of juggling and art-making. And the day ended spectacularly at the Central Textile Museum, with Radar, a transfixing acrobatic dance piece by Il Posto/Wanda Moretti and Marco Castelli Small Ensemble performed on the walls of the White Factory to music ranging from Delibes' Lakmé to Home Alone-sampling polka-techno. 

Radar

The connective tissue between the spaces and events was provided, brilliantly, by more Italians, the adorable company of clowning musicians Compagnia Samovar & Banda Storta. These six avuncular fellows led delighted attendees from place to place with whoops, song and brass accompaniment - sometimes roping unsuspecting passersby into the divine madness.

Compagnia Samovar & Banda Storta

On Sunday, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki and Magdalena Paszkiewicz directed CHOREA's Intergenerational Group  in Brainrot, a broad, sharply funny show, which began with a 2001: A Space Odyssey homage and, in a series of diverse sequences, offered a satirical look at the contemporary challenge to communicate, taking in everything from selfie culture to religion, advertising, The Knife's "Pass This On," the cosmos, and fashion.

Brainrot 

Reminiscent in form and tone of the extraordinary devised Łódź Film School Diploma shows directed by Mariusz Grzegorzek in 2018/2019 and 2019/2020, Brainrot provided a great showcase for the talents of the current group. 

Grief//bot

It was followed by Teatr Kombinat's Grief//bot which modishly but effectively made Artificial Intelligence a protagonist as (like the BBC's recent sitcom hit Ann Droid) it examined how AI might assist the bereaved in working through loss. With a bot based on the biography and data of the late singer, poet and filmmaker Natasza Czarmińska, and audience members invited to ask questions of the model in the final section, the show boasted a tour de force performance from Paweł Palcat, who gave a deeply human face and sense of longing to what sounded in synopsis simply like a tech exercise. 

The Sin of Pride

Maternal loss was also a starting point for Asher Lev's The Sin of Pride, which began with the artist recounting how the death of his mother prompted his move from Israel to Belgium. But the primary inspiration for this piece was Lev's guilt and conflict over the current Gaza war. 

The Sin of Pride

The deceptively gentle, therapeutic opening - with the soft-voiced Lev welcoming the audience and inviting them to write their own current concerns down on pieces of paper - became a radical performance art provocation, with the artist gyrating, chanting and miaowing, before smearing himself in blood and spewing blue liquid over a representation of the Star of David, a symbol he proceeded to destroy in a snarling, feral display.

As a gesture of externalised Jewish self-excoriation, The Sin of Pride wasn't something to be easily shaken off. But by the time Lev was encasing his legs in rubber tubing and propelling himself across the performance space the piece seemed to have degenerated into sheer exhibitionism. Finally washing off the blood, reciting a Palestinian poem, and encouraging the audience to pat their hearts in rhythm to a song, Lev himself appeared to conceive of the piece as a cleansing, bonding collective ritual. But the unsettling result undoubtedly proved the most polarising piece presented on the festival's first weekend. 

The Tiger Lillies

An event that definitely did succeed in creating a united audiences was the Saturday concert by cult British band The Tiger Lillies, whose mix of Weimar cabaret and music hall brought longstanding fans to Fabryka Sztuki and clearly won over many new admirers as well. With their signature white-painted faces, singer/pianist/accordionist Martyn Jacques, Adrian Stout (double bass, jaw harp, theremin) and adorably gurning percussionist Budi Butenop seamlessly presented tracks from last year's Songs From the Sewer record alongside older material. As ironic and macabre as some of the band's material can be, the concert was somehow deeply life-affirming, closing with a tender "Birds Are Singing in Ukraine" - and a cheered swipe at Putin.  

From Belgium, Italy, Britain, Israel, Poland, and Belarus, the global artistic expressions presented at Retroperspektywy made for an opening weekend that was by turns comforting and confronting, but always energising. Following the four days of Robert Hayden's dance residency, the festival opens to the general public again today with a packed programme of events including children's shows, New Circus performances, queer cabaret, and free DJ sets. There's much more to explore; further details here. 

Photos by: Agnieszka Cytacka fotografia

Further reading:

Report on Retroperspektywy 2025

Report on Retroperspektywy 2024

Report on Retroperspektywy 2023

10 Great British TV Shows of 1976 (BFI online article)

I wrote about 10 British TV shows turning 50 this year for BFI online. You can read the piece here. 

Theatre Review: The Smile of Her (Marylebone Theatre)

Reviewing her Oscar-nominated supporting performance in Jonathan Demme's Swing Shift back in 1984, Pauline Kael described Christine Lahti as "one of the towering Venuses who are changing our image of women. Like Sigourney Weaver, Joanna Cassidy, Kathleen Turner and, of course, Vanessa Redgrave," Kael continued,

"[Lahti] is heroically feminine. She's also a rip-snorting comedienne, and she gives [Swing Shift] whatever spark and intensity it has."

‎‎Over 40 years on, Kael's great descriptions hold true for Lahti on stage, where she continues to "change our image of women," this time with a deeply personal work. 

(Photo: Mark Senior)

This summer the actress/writer/director is making her quite unexpected but very welcome London theatre debut in The Smile of Her, which premiered three years ago at the Berkshire Theatre Group's Unicorn Theatre in Massachusetts, in a production by Robert Egan.  

Unlike Susan Sarandon's very low-key first foray onto the UK boards last year as one of the five incarnations of Mary Page Marlowe, Lahti's stage debut here could hardly be bolder or more self-revealing. Not only is The Smile of Her self-penned, it's also intensely confessional; the play takes off from Lahti's book of autobiographical essays True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness (2018), which in turn originated from her performance of some of those pieces as monologues in small NYC venues. 

(Photo: Mark Senior)

The Smile of Her comes to London in a fresh, tweaked new production by Mêlisa Annis at the Marylebone Theatre. Girl-group pop warmly welcomes the audience into the show before Lahti, casually resplendent in red, takes to Sarah Beaton's spare, sofa-dominated set to begin her story.   

The female-fronted creative team seems appropriate for a play that feels very much of the #MeToo moment in its focus on Lahti's feminist awakenings. These are explored as they occurred on the home front - in memories of her middle-class Michigan childhood, her siblings, her authoritarian father and compliant mother (to whom the title refers). And also in the professional arena as she recalls her first forays into acting - inspired when she saw a production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and headed to New York, "where all bad bitches go to make their dreams come true."

Across 90 compelling, cathartic, frequently funny and sometimes gut-wrenching minutes, Lahti reveals her growing awareness of the power dynamics in her family and the wider inequalities they point to, and recalls some disturbing encounters with industry men. (Though celebrated by Kael, Lahti's height definitely wasn't considered an asset by some of those in power in her chosen profession.)

(Photo: Mark Senior)

The Smile of Her isn't quite a monologue. As well as serving as audience-addressing narrator, and  playing her family members in quick, revealing sketches, Lahti also interacts with her childhood self (well played by Isabella Ford). With notable wit, fierceness and generosity of spirit, Lahti moves fluidly between roles, moods and perspectives, keeping the proceedings pacey but also nuanced and thoughtful (she also dealt elegantly with a tech hitch on the night I saw the show). 

The language is sometimes crude, sometimes lyrical; pitched somewhere between Fleabag and The Year of Magical Thinking, the show emerges as something distinctive: part memoir, part drama, part social history, part therapy. 

Looking back, Lahti's film choices often displayed a feminist bent - the aforementioned Swing Shift, plus Housekeeping (1987) and Leaving Normal (1992), for instance. While it's fun to see some footage of her hilarious 1998 Golden Globes win, I'd have loved to hear more about her particular experiences on those films instead. 

But maybe Lahti prefers to be quite vague about aspects of her career in order to avoid solipsism and to give more space to the audience. For, ultimately, it's the family dynamics that cast the longest shadows here, as Lahti movingly honours the traumas experienced by two of her sisters and details a reconciliation with the mother who her college consciousness-raising had distanced her from. 

As a work of contemporary feminism, The Smile of Her is intergenerational but not "intersectional"; it might be viewed as an example of what's these days sometimes fashionably disparaged as "white feminism." Perhaps such labelling, with its reversed hierarchies of value, only serves to create more division, though.  Part of what the play conveys so powerfully is the Second Wave tenet that our most intimate, affective experiences often shape our political consciousness - and how our perceptions can shift over time. 

Lahti tells us at one point that she was drawn to acting for its ability to explore all of life's "messy, ugly and beautiful" aspects. Drawing on painful personal experience to deliver one of the year's essential stage performances, she ensures that The Smile of Her conveys all of that in spades. The show comes warmly recommended. And here's to Lahti's return to London after this run ... Long Day's Journey Into Night, anyone?

The Smile of Her is at Marylebone Theatre until 29 August. Further information here.