The Authenticator

by Winsome Pinnock

seen at the National Theatre (Dorfman) on 25 April 2026

Miranda Cromwell directs Rakie Ayola as Abi, Cherrelle Skeete as Marva and Sylvestra Le Touzel as Fen in a short play in which Abi and her research assistant Marva are invited by Fen, the inheritor of a family estate, to authenticate some diaries she has discovered in a chest, which may relate to her abolitionist ancestor, a Jamaican plantation owner.

The estate is run down - gloriously indicated by Jon Bausor's inventive set, which even contrives a spooky dungeon revealed by the cunning use of a concealed stairway in the floor - and the academics, being Black, have vested interests in the project which may compromise their professional protocols, especially when it seems that the writer of the diaries may have treated slaves badly, and that the family has continued with racist attitudes down to the present day. Yet despite these weighty themes there is much humour in the piece as Pinnock sets about skewering both landed pretensions (Fen's background is belied by her plummy accent) and the clichés of haunted house mysteries with a deft touch occasionally marred by coincidences which are a little too convenient.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

adapted by David Harrower

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 14 June 2018

Polly Findlay directs Lia Williams as Jean Brodie with Angus Wright as Gordon Lowther (the Music Master), Sylvestra le Touzel as Miss Mackay (the Headmistress), Edward MacLiam as Teddy Lloyd (the Art Master), Kit Young as the journalist and Rona Morison, Grace Saif, Emma Hindle, Nicola Coughlan and Helena Wilson as the girls Sandy, Monica, Mary, Joyce Emily and Jenny respectively in this new adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel about the charismatic but unorthodox teacher at a prestigious girls' junior school in Edinburgh in the 1930s.

A hint from the novel, which itself recounts events in the school lives of the girls while also looking forward to their adult careers, provides a framing device for this adaptation, whereby Sandy, the observant prospective writer, is being interviewed by a journalist on the day before she takes final vows in a convent. The ostensible reason for the interview is the publication of Sandy's book on psychology, but the journalist is keen to explore Sandy's memories of her schooldays, and it is his probing which generates the flashbacks telling the story of Miss Brodie's extraordinary influence on 'her' girls, an influence which begins with her dazzling teaching methods when they are eleven, but which continues to affect the favoured set (the only pupils that we actually see in the play) throughout their later years. 

Waste

by Harley Granville Barker

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 27 February

This production is directed by Roger Michell and designed by Hildegard Bechtler, and features Charles Edwards as Henry Trebell, Sylvestra le Touzel as Frances Trebell and Olivia Williams as Amy O'Connell.

The play, banned on its initial publication in 1907, was revised in the 1920s though its subject matter was still controversial. This production uses the later version of the play, in which, among other things, the character of Amy O'Connell is portrayed as more active in creating the brief but catastrophic liaison between herself and Henry Trebell. The consequences - an unwanted child and a fatal illegal abortion - lead to all manner of waste: the child and mother dead, the promising career of the father in ruins (causing his own suicide), the political establishment seen to be immovably patrician, self-serving and misogynistic. But, crucially, everyone is complicit and no-one spotless.