The Duchess (of Malfi) Reviews – Starring Jodie Whittaker

"Jodie Whittaker enthralls in this grisly, modernised Jacobean tragedy"

"Revivals of John Webster’s classic come around often enough, but this superb ensemble are reason enough to pay the Trafalgar a visit"

"The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster’s complex 1613 heroine, is a meaty and testing role for her comeback. But happily – if that’s the right word to use for this harrowing updated version of the grisly Jacobean tragedy – Whittaker proves more than up to the challenge with an enthrallingly layered take on the formidable Duchess."

"Whittaker is magnificent at seamlessly shifting between emotional states and at navigating these shallow male egos: she exudes a defiant, imperial vitality in the face of slut-shaming and attempts to restrict the Duchess’s agency. But she can also be playfully teasing and sultry when seducing Joel Fry’s insecure, slightly useless Antonio or full of joie de vivre when she orgasmically devours an apricot on all fours."

"Despite this tonally jarring ending – and some occasionally distracting technical interventions – Harris pulls off a pacy, intense production. Revivals of Webster’s classic come around often enough, but Whittaker and this superb ensemble are surely reason enough to pay the Trafalgar a visit."

"It’s thrilling to see Jodie Whittaker back on stage"

"This updating of John Webster’s brutal Jacobean tragedy is uneven but comes together in the second half"

"Jodie Whittaker makes a bold return to the stage after 12 years away, in Zinnie Harris’s uneven updating of John Webster’s brutal Jacobean tragedy. It’s an overblown peach of a role for the star of Doctor Who and Broadchurch, packed with passion, grandeur, and the gamut of life from birth to death. But Harris’s adaptation only comes into its own in the second half. Throughout the first, I wondered what the point was."

"It’s still messy and the bloodbath ending is followed by almost 10 minutes of superfluous wittering. An external director might have curbed some of Harris’s writerly profligacy and evened out the tonal imbalance of the two halves. But it’s undeniably thrilling to see Whittaker on stage again and remarkable to see an adaptation of a Jacobean tragedy – in the same week as an updated Oedipus – in the West End."

"Jodie Whittaker returns to the stage in an unrecognisable adaptation"

"... for all its admirable boldness, there is something incongruous about seeing this early 17th century drama entirely rewritten for the modern day. For one thing, the strict codes of religion and hierarchy that lie behind – or provide an excuse for – the brothers’ insistence on the Duchess’s chastity, sit at odds with the contemporary setting. Instead, Harris suggests they’re driven by a mix of incestuous desire (more apparent in Byrne’s creepy Ferdinand) and pure sadism (Ready is a study in cold-blooded cruelty). This makes sense to a point, but never quite rings true."

"The performances, however, are impressive – including Elizabeth Ayodele and Hubert Burton as Julia and Delio, here recast as mismatched spouses. Whittaker in particular reminds us why she’s been such a miss these past dozen years"

"Jodie Whittaker trapped in Tarantinoesque revenge tragedy"

"Zinnie Harris’s version of the Jacobean play makes potent points about power but is hamstrung by an overbearing production"

"Zinnie Harris’s updated version from 2019, taking place in an indistinct present with swearing and sex alongside some 17th-century formalities, makes hard-hitting points on the sociopathic reasoning for murderous misogyny. But it is too much of a melange of tone and ideas. Jodie Whittaker, returning to the stage after more than a decade’s absence, gives a spirited leading performance but is hamstrung by the strangeness of Harris’s own production."

"The performances are powerful but the setup feels so overbearingly orchestrated that you do not feel the characters’ passion or anger. For all its good ideas, perhaps there are too many of them. It seems ultimately like auteur overload."

"Even Jodie Whittaker can’t save this nonsensical bloodbath"

"Zinnie Harris's contemporary adaptation of John Webster's Jacobean play at the Trafalgar Theatre doesn't tone down its nastiness - and makes even less sense"

"John Webster’s Jacobean bloodbath of misogyny is made not even one degree more cheerful in this contemporary adaptation by writer-director Zinnie Harris. Whittaker gives a powerful and passionate performance, but she faces an insurmountable challenge as Harris’s reworking makes less and less sense as it proceeds."

"The intense and tortured poetry of Webster’s original has many fans, but I can never surmount my feelings of revulsion at the sheer nastiness of the events it portrays. The same sensations prevail here"

"Jodie Whittaker play is robbed of its subtlety and dark magic"

"Cheesy and hackneyed techniques take away from a feminist tale that could have been so much more"

"It’s a story that’s ripe for a feminist reimagining, and Scottish playwright and academic Zinnie Harris might well seem like the person for the job. But like a lecturer trying desperately to hammer her point into her students’ supine, hungover brains, she seems terrified of not being understood in The Duchess – robbing the original of its subtlety and dark magic in this production at London’s Trafalgar Theatre."

"Harris directs as well as adapts, using an overspilling ragbag of strategies borrowed from European directors’ theatre. Stark lighting. Ear-splitting judders of sound. A few times, characters step up to the microphone to sing out their inner lives, Whittaker revealing a beautifully soulful voice – but the device feels both hackneyed and underused. Tom Piper’s clinical white set design is – in a now-familiar stratagem – primed to show up this revenge tragedy’s inevitable blood."

"Muddled"

"Jodie Whittaker returns to the stage in this bold, Gothic, but strangely dispassionate exploration of male violence"

"For all its shocks and violence, an atmosphere of numbing coldness saturates this overly mannered reworking of John Webster’s grisly tragedy, written and directed by Zinnie Harris."

"First performed in 2019, Harris’ version strips Webster’s script to the bone, leaving behind raw expositional dialogue where characters baldly state their innermost flaws. Harris’ staging is packed with impactful ideas but never settles on a tone, lurching from stylised sleaziness to feverish farce."

"Heading a sharply uneven cast, Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker gives the haughty Duchess an air of alienating privilege and towering pride that blinds her to danger but also allows her to withstand the suffering she’s subjected to. Towards the play’s end, she is transfigured into a ghostly harbinger of vengeance, stalking around the stage whispering ominously."

"A flat, one-star turn by Jodie Whittaker"

"The Doctor Who star’s acting is featureless and the script is an utterly confusing barrage of misfiring black comedy in Zinnie Harris’s Trafalgar Theatre production"

"There may be more than enough Doctor Who fans to keep the box office ticking over, but it’s hard to see who else will enjoy seeing Jodie Whittaker — making her long-awaited return to the stage — stumble through a dismal reworking of John Webster’s Jacobean tragedy. The writer-director Zinnie Harris throws a boxful of half-shaped ideas at the audience and leaves the actors looking horribly exposed. Long stretches feel like a rehearsal from a student production."

"... Whittaker’s performance is so flat and featureless that we could be anywhere. There’s certainly nothing aristocratic about her bearing. It might make more sense, I suppose, if this Duchess of Malfi were really in an East End pub with a clientele of gangsters."

"Star Jodie Whittaker gives it some welly, but Zinnie Harris’s half-baked Webster rewrite is a poor vehicle for her post-‘Doctor Who’ stage return"

"Writer-director Zinnie Harris’s tepid modern-dress update of famous tragedy The Duchess of Malfi isn’t helped by the fact that it opened on the West End precisely one night after writer-director Robert Icke’s sublime modern-dress update of famous tragedy Oedipus. But even The Duchess (of Malfi) had avoided being programmed on the worst night in the entire theatre calendar it could possibly have been programmed, it would still not be very good."

"Harris’s contemporary English rewrite of John Webster’s macabre 1613 play has some good lines, and she gets solid performances from Whittaker as the doomed Duchess, Paul Ready as her batshit brother The Cardinal, and Rory Fleck Byrne as her even more batshit other brother Ferdinand."

"The basic point is that despite the trappings of modernity, Harris’s take only really makes sense if you say it’s effectively still set amidst the deadly intrigues of sixteenth century Italy. Rather than boldly reimagining Webster, Harris has mostly just reskinned him."