Reviews of Mrs Warren’s Profession starring Imelda Staunton & Bessie Carter – Garrick Theatre London

"Starring with her daughter Bessie Carter, Imelda Staunton is typically amazing in the startlingly fresh Bernard Shaw sex worker drama"

"For a script penned in 1893, Mrs Warren’s Profession still feels remarkably fresh."

"Yet upon first glance, director Dominic Cooke’s production is as traditional as they come; Chloe Lamford’s costumes are all lace and ruffles, and ‘by Jove!’ is exclaimed ad nauseum. But something darker bubbles beneath the surface"

"... Staunton, as one would expect, is able to create a character rich with contradiction in this vivid production. There’s nothing ahistorical in her performance, yet Mrs Warren’s monologues could be quoted verbatim by anti-criminalisation campaigners today without the batting of an eyelid."

"Carter’s Vivie is the centre of the play, and Carter imbues this unconventional woman with the appropriate mix of modern and traditional sensibilities, even when Cooke’s direction does call on her to spend an awful lot of time just sitting down."

"Despite clocking in at close to two hours without an interval, this one-act play rarely drags. Tension is created and held even in the frothier in-between scenes."

"Imelda Staunton and her daughter are superbly matched in Mrs Warren’s Profession"

"George Bernard Shaw’s 1892 play feels as modern as ever in Dominic Cooke’s clever staging"

"Dominic Cooke's sensuous, smart staging of George Bernard Shaw’s 1892 problem play"

"Imelda Staunton is magnificent as the titular Mrs Warren"

"... Cooke’s pared-back production lets that modernity shine out, scrapping all that tedious late-Victorian stage business of tablecloths and rattling teacups in favour of a simple circle of greenery – ravishingly imagined by designer Chloe Lamford"

"Staunton is on tremendous form as this faintly cockney-accented grande dame, a hard head under her fluffy coiffure."

"... it’s a relief that Cooke saves his energies for the third act’s brilliantly performed showpiece confrontation between mother and daughter, where Shaw writes women who think and debate as they’d never been allowed to on stage before. Carter brings a subtle note of internal conflict to Vivie’s resolutely rational arguments"

"Mother and daughter Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter are playing Mrs Kitty Warren and her daughter Vivie in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession. That’s the headline. The result is an extraordinary tour de force that brings the play to vivid and compelling life."

"Yet it is the quality that they share that powers the play, making its questions about morality and society fizz: both are remarkably good at using stillness and containment to suggest the most volcanic thoughts and feelings. In the two great confrontations between mother and daughter that shape the drama, the air between them seems charged."

"To bring the debate into an even sharper focus, in a brilliant stroke, he has introduced a silent chorus of scantily-clad women who surround Vivie in silent contemplation, under Jon Clark’s piercing light. Their presence is a reminder of the human cost of the choices both women have made"

"The greatest casualties in this barebones approach are the male characters"

"Yet for all Staunton’s command, it is Carter who drives the piece"

"Imelda Staunton and her daughter make a winning double act"

"This classy staging of George Bernard Shaw’s family drama boasts a terrific mother/daughter performance, but it lacks fire in its belly"

"... at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I’d say Dominic Cooke’s briskly efficient, interval-free revival courts seeming a bit anodyne, especially given the PR promise that Cooke and co are bringing this once contentious, long-banned 1894 work “crashing into the 21st century” (they don’t). That said, few should pass up the opportunity to see Staunton on stage."

"Though physically dissimilar, Carter (a star of Bridgerton) carries her mater’s thespian DNA in her sparkle and subtlety – a smirk, a bemused look, and you’re hooked."

"The big scenes between mother and daughter are quietly tremendous, and crackle with a genuine sense of a familial bond without becoming cosy."

"Shaw, the old radical, would be glad to see how his work has endured – but wouldn’t he also want it showing a bit more fire in its belly?"

"Imelda Staunton in formidable form as brothel-keeper"

"Filial tangles, played with the actor’s real-life daughter Bessie Carter, bring George Bernard Shaw’s once-banned drama to life"

"Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter here make a more compelling double act and bring an added frisson to the play’s intimacies and disputes."

"It feels abidingly faithful but moves stiffly at times, carrying the sense of a dusted down drama despite Chloe Lamford’s shining set"

"It is never staid when Staunton is on stage, though. Both mother and daughter give dignified performances, Staunton the more subtle and formidable with an edge of the dandy while Vivie is plainer and more upright. The play flares fully to life in their duologues but the scenes around them feel filled with extraneous, thinly drawn characters and plot."

"This is, in large part, a static play of ideas, but the arguments are nuanced."

"Shaw shows himself to be well ahead of his time in capturing all of this and his arguments still hold a grip, even if it comes off like a Wilde play without the jokes."

"Imelda Staunton battles with Bernard Shaw"

"Fine actress though she is, Staunton struggles to make Shaw’s verbose drama zing, although it’s intriguing to see her sparring with her real-life daughter, Bessie Carter"

"The torrent of words beats you into submission. Even with a text that has been cut down and clarified by Cooke himself, you still sense Shaw’s hectoring presence."

"Fine actress though she is, Staunton struggles to step out of the great man’s shadow, although it’s intriguing to see her sparring with her real-life daughter, Bessie Carter, who made such a strong impression in the National’s version of Dodie Smith’s Dear Octopus."

"The symbolism is heavy-handed and aside from Robert Glenister’s leering businessman Sir George Crofts, the men in Kitty and Vivie’s orbit never really seem more than a neatly ordered set of opinions."

"... it’s only in her final confrontation with Vivie that real emotions begin to stir."

"Although Staunton's Mrs Warren is a feisty lady of easy virtue, she seems almost fearful of securing the approval of a daughter who enjoys the ethical certainties of a young millennial."

"It's as if director Dominic Cooke feared being caught in the family crossfire. Instead, his expurgated version occupies safe moral high ground in a production that strips the colour and gaiety from the original. He turns it into a stern puritanical parable, in which the women from Mrs Warren's past appear in bloomers to change scenery and suggest her guilty conscience."

"In Mrs Warren's Profession, Imelda Staunton outshines her real-life daughter"

"George Bernard Shaw’s 1893 drama is a stinging social critique of lower-class women's lack of choice"

"This latest outing doesn’t quite manage to complete a hat-trick of undisputed triumphs, but it is never less than a fascinating evening’s theatre."

"... Cooke has taken the sensible decision to edit this one down sharply, so that it now runs at 105 minutes without an interval. Cooke has described his process as shaping the work into a Greek tragedy, in which characters are forced to reckon with the heavy consequences of decisions taken in their past. This is a sharp and clever idea, but one unfortunate by-product is that it leaves the four male characters, in particular, seeming underdeveloped and two-dimensional."

"The production offers up occasional moments of huge emotion, all of which come from Staunton"

"Carter, known for her work in Bridgerton and Dear Octopus at the National last year, struggles slightly with her role, making Vivie’s looks and gestures unhelpfully over-emphatic at times."

"Why does it feel so mechanical?"

"Imelda Staunton stars opposite her real life daughter Bessie Carter in a George Bernard Shaw production that tends to drag even with huge cuts"

"Who knows how it worked back then, but George Bernard Shaw was either paid by the word or really bored in the late 1800s because his plays are long."

"So why on earth would you want to watch GBS now? Director Dominic Cooke gives us two enticements: one, he’s cut the play massively. Hour forty five straight through. Bang. Second, brothel-keeper Mrs Warren and her prim daughter Vivie are played by real life Imelda Staunton and real life daughter Bessie Carter (who happens to be in Bridgerton)."

"The problem with Cooke’s version is that it wants to be more."

"It’s Staunton doing what she does well, and has done before. Staunch, slightly terrifying. Every line a masterclass in technical precision, in full commitment. And here, it doesn’t work. She’s in a melodrama while everyone around her is in a pleasant garden comedy"

"... Cooke’s sharp scissors, which have removed a lot of Shaw’s bloat, but have also stopped us from spending enough time with the characters to ease into them. And even despite the excisions, the play still manages to drag."

"Cooke’s slimline text and his lavish production turn a remarkably punchy 130-year old play into exactly what you fear an evening of Bernard Shaw might be: worthy and dull"

"Inescapable sense of artificiality"

"Imelda Staunton and her daughter Bessie Carter star in a mechanical revival of Shaw’s chewy drama"

"... to a modern audience, the play is verbose and didactic. For his new production, Dominic Cooke has filleted it drastically, making it leaner and interval-free. Yet it doesn’t feel as if he’s gone far enough."

"... there’s a mechanical quality both to the staging and to some of the acting, and it never feels as if there’s enough at stake. And although real-life mother and daughter Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter are focused and meticulous as Kitty and Vivie Warren, and while there’s plenty of gristle to chew on here, there’s somehow a lack of bone, blood and, ultimately, heart."

"... more interesting is the confrontation between mother and daughter. It’s here that Cooke’s production chiefly finds its crackle"

"There’s an inescapable sense, though, of artificiality; the ideas neatly stacked up, but the humanity oddly absent."

"Imelda Staunton and daughter light up Shaw’s notorious brothel drama"

"Playing a former sex worker and her disapproving daughter, Staunton and Bessie Carter are a treat in Dominic Cooke’s bold new production, which liberates the heart of Bernard Shaw’s once banned play"

"What a double slicing through generations. A play written more than 130 years ago is brushed off and given new vivacity by one of today’s most incisive directors."

"What makes Staunton so good in the title role is her ability to tease with her treasurableness: she coats steely exploitation with jaunty allure; the revelation of her sheer calculation produces a shudder."

"In a performance that made me eager to see her again and again on the stage, Carter gleams with candour and intelligence, yet is also touched by chilliness."

"He has given Shaw’s play a good shaking and found a plot with consequences that slowly uncurl over generations, as do those in Greek tragedy. Without committing GBH on GBS, he has been rightly bold. He has cut repetitions, Shavian curlicues, background explanations and detail (no more itemisation of menus); he has liberated the drama’s heart."