Intimate Apparel

by Lynn Nottage

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 31 July 2025

Lynette Linton directs Samira Wiley as Esther, a Black New York seamstress, Nicola Hughes as her landlady and employer Mrs Dickson, Faith Omole as her friend Mayme, Kadiff Kirwan as her suitor and husband George, Claudia Jolly as Mrs Van Buren, a wealthy client, and Alex Waldmann as Mr Marks, a Jewish fabric merchant, in Lynn Nottage's play Intimate Apparel, set in 1905 and loosely inspired by the career of her own great-grandmother.

Skilled dressmaking was a respectable occupation for poor women who valued their reputation, and Esther hopes one day to set up a beauty salon using the carefully hoarded savings from her exquisite corset-making, as she is much in demand by the likes of Mrs Van Buren. An alternative source of livelihood is represented by Mayme who works in a brothel. Out of the blue Esther receives a letter from George who is working on the construction of the Panama Canal and has heard of Esther through a mutual acquaintance from the parish church of her childhood home. As she is 35 and fearful of being a lifelong spinster she responds through the good graces of Mrs Van Buren (as she is illiterate herself) and a charming correspondence flourishes as the couple gradually gain confidence in one another. But marriage, when it comes, brings perhaps inevitable disillusionment as Esther loses her hard-won autonomy and George, whose own letter-writing was also aided by someone else, proves less loving than she hoped. A very subdued flirtation with Mr Marks is hemmed in by her shyness and the social customs of his faith, but is channelled through their shared enthusiasm for fine fabrics.

The characters and themes could so easily be stereotypical but Nottage's dialogue is supple and nuanced, the insight into the the appreciation of fabric and style completely assured and convincing, and the situations resonant with carefully observed emotional weight. Esther, the focal point of the play, is long-suffering and often almost inarticulate but Samira Wiley invests her with a quiet steeliness which receives the blows to her expectations with painful grunts more eloquent than wordy outbursts of feeling: it is a superb performance offsetting the worldly wisdom of her landlady, the breezy self-assurance of Mayme or the entitled but unhappy bravura of Mrs Van Buren. Alex Waldmann gives Mr Marks a courteous reticence which ultimately hides a deep disappointment while Kadiff Kirwan's George moves from lyrical correspondent to domineering husband with all-too-plausible ease.

Lynn Nottage has re-imagined her forebear's experience and the cast and creative team have done her proud in bringing it to theatrical life.

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018

Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Angus Jackson and features Alex Waldmann as Brutus, Martin Hutson as Cassius, Andrew Woodall as Julius Caesar, James Corrigan as Mark Antony and Jon Tarcy as Octavius Caesar.

The setting is notionally Classical (columns, and a foreboding statue of a lion mauling a horse, feature at the back of the stage in the first half, rather than any realistic evocation of sites such as the theatre of Pompey where Caesar's assassination actually took place; rough indications of open landscape for the second half - designer Robert Innes Hopkins); the costumes also feature togas and tunics, but also very un-Roman red calf-length trousers.

This helps establish the historical background, and allows for very fine visual effects when, for example, the conspirators move from being a group of symmetrically placed almost-statues to a mob of baying assassins. It also gives added effect to Julius Caesar's stately arrogance, while allowing us to see the human frailty it is meant to conceal (a certain elderly deafness as well as hints of the epilepsy referred to by Cassius). Andrew Woodall shows us the arrogance of the man who evidently will not need much more persuading to become a king.

The Wars of the Roses

by William Shakespeare adapted by John Barton and Peter Hall

seen at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames on 29 October 2015

In 1962 John Barton and Peter Hall devised three plays they called 'Henry VI', 'Edward IV' and 'Richard III' from Shakespeare's original 'Henry VI' Parts 1, 2 and 3, and 'Richard III'. Presented under the overall title 'The Wars of the Roses', this was a major success for the then-new Royal Shakespeare Company, but the adaptations have rarely been performed since. Trevor Nunn saw the original productions as an undergraduate, and they inspired his vocation as a theatre director - he later followed Peter Hall as artistic director of both the RSC and the National Theatre. Peter Hall was also the founding patron of the Rose Theatre, and so Trevor Nunn has revived the trilogy here as a tribute to his mentor.

This production features Alex Waldmann as Henry VI, Joely Richardson as his queen Margaret of Anjou, Kåre Conradi as Edward IV, Alexandra Gilbreath as his queen Elizabeth, Robert Sheehan as Richard of Gloucester (later Richard III) and Alexander Hanson as Richard Plantagenet the Duke of York. The many other speaking parts are shared between these and sixteen other actors, some young boys and a 'company community chorus' of sixteen more assorted soldiers and peasants. The set was designed by John Napier and Mark Friend.

King John (again)

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 25 June 2015

I decided to see this production again in a stage space after the visually frustrating experience at the Temple Church. Ironically I chose a fabulous seat in the centre of the lower gallery - which happened to create sightline problems of its own in this case, as I was facing one of the main axes of approach where actors often stood in a direct line obscuring anyone in the centre of the stage. However, this was a minor problem compared with the massive pillars of the church.

King John

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Temple Church (Middle Temple) on 15 April 2015

Shakespeare's Globe's first production of 'King John' is being performed at various historically relevant locations before coming to the Globe itself in the summer. The Temple Church, located in the Middle Temple which supported John during the baronial crisis of 1215, is particularly evocative as one of the characters in the play (the Earl of Pembroke) is actually buried there.

The production, directed by James Dacre, features Jo Stone-Fewings as King John, Alex Waldmann as the Bastard, Barbara Marten as Queen Eleanor, Tanya Moodie as Constance, Laurence Belcher as Prince Arthur and Mark Meadows as Hubert.  

The audience enters the Round Church - the image of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - to find monks chanting around the figure of King John lying in state on a catafalque, in imitation of the effigy in Worcester Cathedral (a copy of which is nearby). However the performance takes place in the adjoining nave and chancel, where a series of rostrums has been constructed along the whole length of the central aisle and also along the transepts. The bulk of the lighting is provided by candles at floor level along the rostra and in various higher clusters, with some discreet spotlights which are at first hardly noticeable as the spring twilight streams through the windows. The general effect - chanting, lighting and quantities of incense - is dramatic and exciting.

Widowers' Houses

by Bernard Shaw

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 24 January 2015

This was the first performed play by Bernard Shaw, in 1892. It blends social comedy with intense criticism of the exploitation of poor tenants by slum landlords, but, as is often the case with Shaw, it does not attempt a dramatic resolution of the problems discussed. It is the first of three so-called 'Plays Unpleasant', designed to provoke rather than soothe an audience.