PARK THEATRE – UNTIL 28th FEBRUARY 2026
REVIEWED BY JACKIE THORNTON
4****
We’re transported back to 1945 Britain and the eve of Labour’s historic election victory in this 70-minute updating of Strindberg’s 19th Century Swedish play.
Award winning director Dadiow Lin’s thoughtful interpretation of renowned dramatist Patrick Marber’s brutal love tragedy is fiery and intense. We don’t find ourselves upstairs at any celebratory parties though, we’re downstairs in the kitchen of a stately home where Eleanour Wintour’s detailed period set design makes slick use of staging in the round to serve up supper, tea, coffee and drinks from mobile kitchen islands.
Charlene Boyd’s pious, buttoned-up housekeeper Christine never stops, ensuring every need is met for both her employers and chauffeur husband-to-be John, played with humour and passion by Tom Varey. Socialist views may have triumphed in the ballot box but this is not a space of equals. A fact we’re reminded of when daughter of the house Miss Julie, a stunning debut leading role from Liz Francis, sweeps in to fraternise with the staff. Her father (unseen) may be a Labour peer but he certainly doesn’t polish his own shoes and Julie’s attempts to foster relations with the lower classes only extends to making a play for John. Indeed, we learn that his Lordship has done his bit to educate John by lending him books and taking him to the theatre but isn’t there a bitter cruelty in teasing a lifestyle that will never be?
This is the crux of the play: the uncomfortable truth, which feels very fitting for modern audiences, that we are all stuck in an unbreakable system. Varey and Francis are transfixing as their desire and repulsion for one another shifts at a frantic pace, underlining their power struggle and reflecting that of society at large.
A clever and passionate story of class struggle with a sting in the tail.