Morning:
12°c
Gordon Brown finally turns on the union that bankrolls Labour, saying the planned strike by British Airways cabin crew was 'unjustified and deplorable'
More...
The 3D is sparkling at times but flat and wonderless compared to Avatar
Alice In Wonderland
Theatre
This is a satisfying and intelligently conceived production. It’s fluent, very funny and at times dazzlingly well-acted
Private Lives
Restaurants
A swathe of west London will be swooning ... this is as good as pizza gets
Franco Manca
Who knew Kim Cattrall was such a sensational stage actress? And Matthew Macfadyen doesn't seem to be able to put a foot wrong
The Orange isn't just a 'swishy gastropub' but a clever combination of various pub/dining experiences all under one roof
Dizzee Rascal and Lily Allen, two giants of pop shared the stage for what was sure to be an incredible evening.
London,
Evening Standard rating
Reader rating
Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin star in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
I left the theatre last night moved and oddly elated by the experience of watching something terrible. Bill Irwin's mild-mannered American history professor, George, and Kathleen Turner as his tough, earthy wife Martha, displaying a languid contempt for him, spend the vulture's share of three hours tearing strips off each other until nothing is left on view but their bare, wounded essences.
Their childless, fantasy-laden marriage, rich in failure and disappointment, has left them addicted to a war of recriminating and acerbic words. A young couple, Nick a cute biology lecturer and his mousily vacuous wife, Honey, are famously caught up in this dark night of the soul. It all happens at two in the morning when the quartet end up hard-drinking together and home-truths start to hit home - below the belt.
Martha, whose daddy runs the university and has never forgiven her husband for not being the dominant man of her dreams, runs sexy, scathing and revealing of intimate secrets until her husband at last turns the tables.
If my response to all this makes me sound like a sadist in the stalls, then the sound misleads. It is true that of all plays in the 20th century Anglo-American repertoire that cut up rough and cruel about marital bad relations none transmits such an embittered or damaging charge as Edward Albee's instant, brutally amusing classic from 1962.
It skates over the play's rather dated historical underpinning, with the couple named after the first presidential couple. Historian George sees the West in terminal decline, consumed by desire for money and power, with liberalism a hopeless culdesac. Nick the biologist sees the future ridiculously in eugenics.
The production conveys the attraction of people who know how to wound with words. Its only weaknesses are David Harbour's nerdish Nick, who lacks the necessary sexual charisma and swagger and the George of Bill Irwin, which despite his mood of desiccated desolation needs sometimes to fire on all emotional cylinders.
The lethally effective, mesmerising Miss Turner, a butch, boozy broad in a middle-age spread of malice, and a tight blouse, does her sadistic bit with all the lazy, nonchalance of a maid swatting flies.
Meanwhile Irwin's much cleverer, mild-mannered George maintains a stiff upper lip as the best of masochists prefer to. He even returns cruel volleys with a mild vengeance. The valuable psychological tilt of Page's production, though, becomes clear in the final act where George takes his revenge on Martha and announces the closure of the fantasy which has sustained their life together.
To reveal the details of the consoling make-believe games that the couple have played would spoil it for those who do not know this drama or the splendid Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton film version.
Turner, terrific in her dawning despair, makes luminously clear something concealed: for all the cruelties and witty mockeries that the couple have inflicted on each other, some mutual love, concern and respect sustains their sad lives. In rejecting fantasy they at last try for life. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is irresistibly fine.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
