Woman in Mind reviews: Sheridan Smith Shines, but Does Ayckbourn’s play still stand up?

"The night belongs to Sheridan in Ayckbourn's dizzying black comedy"

"What the Doctor ordered. Romesh Ranganathan is terrific"

"Sheridan Smith is hypnotic in Ayckbourn"

"Smith plays another heroine on the edge in this revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s audacious 1985 play, alongside Romesh Ranganathan in his West End stage debut"

"Barely three years ago, Sheridan Smith was frying eggs at the Duke of York’s in London as that downtrodden Liverpudlian housewife Shirley Valentine. Now she’s back on the same stage in a revival of a stunningly inventive Alan Ayckbourn play in which she could be portraying Shirley’s darker, troubled cousin from further afield."

"The writing is simply brilliant."

"I spent the first half of Michael Longhurst’s production wondering if Smith was too genial and smiley to do justice to Susan’s anguish. By the end of the evening, though... Smith’s twinkling eyes grow more and more hypnotic."

"The comedian Romesh Ranganathan, making his West End stage debut, isn’t the most subtle incarnation of Bill... But it’s a brave performance nonetheless, supplying a cartoonish edge that meshes with the rest of Longhurst’s slightly manic approach."

"It’s so cheering to see the West End can still take risks, and even more encouraging to know that Smith and co will be taking the play out of London, albeit briefly, after the run finishes."

"Sheridan Smith is mesmerising in Ayckbourn’s nightmarish comedy"

"A rake to the head opens the door to longing and psychological collapse in a West End revival of Woman in Mind"

"Bravo Sheridan Smith, back on stage in Michael Longhurst’s triumphant revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s most desolate play... She is tremendous as Susan"

"Woman in Mind, first seen in 1985, is a radical form-bending exploration of psychiatric breakdown. Longhurst gives it plenty of commercial gloss – the appealing cast includes the comedian Romesh Ranganathan – but, in a mark of what the West End can achieve with a bit of gumption, he also goes full out on Ayckbourn’s theatrical daring."

"... in a beautifully precise performance, she brings a cool, initially almost underwhelming air of ironic detachment to this bored and lonely housewife"

"Ayckbourn conceived the play as a comment on the straightjacket of motherhood and domesticity; 40 years on it works most powerfully as a portrait of catastrophic sexual repression. Yet Smith also gives us a thoroughly specific character study of a flawed and complicated woman"

"The penultimate scene, which immerses us in Susan’s full-blown psychotic crisis (Smith at her very best) is a grotesque fun-house nightmare."

"The rest of the cast is excellent... But it’s Smith’s night."

"Sheridan Smith is unmissable as an effervescent middle-aged Alice having a bad trip in Wonderland"

"Verdict: Courageous"

"Never miss an opportunity to catch Sheridan Smith live... And here she is again with a performance that's joyfully effervescent, yet also dangerously intense and even disturbed."

"We share her confusion about what's real and what's not, but the story is given clarity and driven by her emotional intensity, in a character who's never off stage for over two hours. Snippy and fidgety, she's all wry smiles and inappropriate jokes, but sometimes she looks plain scared."

"... its themes of mental collapse are timeless and compelling, illustrated by Michael Longhurst's production featuring swirling, psychedelic projections beyond a clipped lawn, alongside squealing tinnitus between scenes."

"This may not be how everyone likes to think of Smith, but it's a tribute to her range and courage as an actor."

"Play stands the test of time for its originality"

"Sheridan Smith’s disconsolate housewife seeks refuge in a fantasy world, in Alan Ayckbourn’s critique of the emptiness of married life"

"Although this play premiered in 1985, Susan is in many ways the straitjacketed 1950s housewife, albeit drawn in a darkly comic vein."

"Smith plays the part with whimsical daintiness and subtlety, throwing out mischievous or slighted looks... but the emotional connection lessens as the drama becomes more high-pitched and surreal."

"...Romesh Ranganathan, as nervy doctor Bill is unusual casting but brings the comedy of this nerdy sidekick to life."

"Revived in its 40th anniversary year, the play stands the test of time for its originality and boldness: this is a critique of the emptiness of married life and the desperation that a woman feels inside it... When it works, it is unnerving."

"It is a play worth reviving too at a time when the real world looks so bleak. What is the alternative to facing up to it? Seeking recourse in fantasy, only to find that this is not a panacea but another version of the same nightmare of real life?"

"Sheridan Smith’s wit can’t quite elevate this frivolous fare"

"The ‘Funny Girl’ star plays a suburban housewife who has lost her grip on reality in Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 comedy"

"Sheridan Smith (Funny Girl) brings both wit and emotional depth to its central role... But Smith can’t do much to disguise the fact that this is frivolous fare, unlikely to become a set text for students of either contemporary theatre or psychology."

"Director Michael Longhurst’s bright, punchy staging initially makes a pretty good case for reviving this seldom-staged play."

"The comedian Romesh Ranganathan turns in a broad and often very funny performance as her doctor, Bill, who tries to anchor Susan to reality... And Louise Brealey is hilarious as Muriel"

"There’s something compelling about his tale of a stifled woman trying to escape into vivid daydreams, only to find that they too have become polluted by the same darkness and dullness of her everyday life."

"Still, it feels that Ayckbourn is ultimately more interested in the creative possibilities of madness than in probing too deeply into its underlying causes."

"... the weirdest moments of Woman in Mind genuinely are jolting, as Susan swaps making cups of coffee for brewing dark rebellion. Still, taken as an exploration of mental illness, this play’s blunt, larky approach feels both dated and faintly tasteless."

"Sheridan Smith elevates this somewhat dated material"

"Smith has a uniquely vivid physical presence, and her emotions are shimmeringly close to the surface"

"Almost three years after her superlative Shirley Valentine at this theatre, Sheridan Smith shines as another trapped housewife, again elevating somewhat dated material in the process."

"... comedian Romesh Ranganathan in a partially successful West End acting debut"

"Gradually, the play morphs into a much darker portrait of a collapsing mind. It’s done with Ayckbourn’s typical fluency, but concept overwhelms character: everyone, including Susan, is thinly drawn. Smith, with her singular ability to connect to an audience, makes it work."

"Michael Longhurst’s production has a meta edge, with the raising and lowering of the Duke of York’s safety curtain, adorned with psychedelically morphing flowers, used to flag Susan’s shifting mental state."

"... Ayckbourn is more interested in the depiction of Susan’s mental state than its causes. She’s solely defined as a wife and mother, with no interior life. And pretty much everyone else on stage is a stock character"

"The play puts Susan through the physical and mental wringer and it works thanks to Smith. She has a uniquely vivid physical presence, and her emotions are shimmeringly close to the surface."

"Sheridan Smith is wonderful and Romesh Ranganathan decent, but Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play is more artifice than heart"

"... Woman in Mind, which has been a West End hit a couple of times before, in productions directed by Ayckbourn himself. Here, Michael Longhurst does the honour, in an alluring revival that thrills for a good while before miring in concept."

"This is an extremely handsome production: I loved Soutra Gilmour’s lush but menacing garden set, and the way the two worlds are initially, jarringly divided by a partially raised safety curtain."

"For what it’s worth, comic Ranganathan acquits himself well: the bumbling, posh, repressed Bill is a million miles away from the comic’s sardonic stage persona"

"And then there’s Smith, a wonderful and empathetic actor who effortlessly covers Susan’s considerable emotional terrain... But but but… it’s like watching somebody on a fairground ride. Yes, Smith gives it heart and soul, but it’s mostly about seeing Susan engulfed by the lurid artifice and emotional corkscrews of Ayckbourn’s stage directions."

"I think my biggest problem is that with her amusingly preposterous sister in law Muriel (Louise Brealey) and son Rick (Taylor Uttley) freshly escaped from a cult, Susan’s ‘real’ life is so overegged that it’s scarcely any less ludicrous than her imagined one."

"There is something melancholic and Chekhovian at its core, but it’s deep, deep beneath the surface, obscured by an all consuming conceptual glamour."

"Sheridan Smith gives a strong turn in an outdated tragicomedy"

" Sheridan Smith, having already played a magnificent Shirley, now turns her attention to Susan, first seen lying on the ground, having knocked herself out on a garden rake."

"... comedian Romesh Ranganathan, making a belated and appealing stage debut"

"In Michael Longhurst’s production, the characters slip into view by bending under the floral-covered safety curtain. They are clearly not real. But the point of Ayckbourn’s subtle, sympathetic play, is to suggest that for Susan they provide a vital means of escape from her trivial daily round"

"It becomes dark and rain-filled as the action progresses, while Andrzej Goulding’s video designs blur, alter and distort, suggesting various stages of her mental state. It’s a brilliantly conceived idea, and often very funny."

"Ayckbourn’s writing straddles the line between light laughter and domestic trauma with considerable finesse, but the second act darkens as Susan’s desperation rises and even her other life no longer provides the escape she longs for."

"The problem with the play 40 years on is that, although its truths are universal, its characters are very much of its time."

"In the artificiality of this context, Smith’s Susan seems too contemporary and knowing"

"She is infinitely moving... It’s a lovely, naturalistic performance, but it exposes the artificiality of the play."

"Sheridan Smith is a firecracker in Alan Ayckbourn revival"

"The great comic actor stars alongside Romesh Ranganathan in the troubling comedy at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre"

"The trick to Alan Ayckbourn’s 1986 play — and the reason why it has been revived more often than many of his other 90-odd plays — is that it convinces us it’s the kind of pleasant comedy he is so known for, before disintegrating into something far more troubling."

"Michael Longhurst’s 40th anniversary revival at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre is enjoyable enough, and makes room for some decent performances from the headline-grabbing cast, but seems uncertain about how to approach something that starts lightly and ends in such a dark place."

"Ranganathan is a nice surprise, exuding a thousand times more energy than his comedy persona"

"... Longhurst takes the play quite seriously, homing in on the creepiness of the piece... The problem is that creepiness slips in too early, which means the opening scenes don’t get to be funny enough while the later scenes have their strangeness diluted."

"[Sheridan Smith] has a kind of doused firecracker energy to her, with little sparks of feistiness and ferocity, too interesting to be boring."

"When the derangement climaxes, Smith cowering under a bench, drenched to the skin, its power comes despite the production rather than because of it."

"Sheridan Smith needs to let rip more in Woman in Mind"

"Smith is very good in this production of Alan Ayckbourn’s highly regarded drama - but she is capable of better"

"Susan is our unreliable narrator and the only character onstage throughout in Michael Longhurst’s elegant production, and Smith is very good without being great. She doesn’t let rip in the way we know that she can, to explore the full bleak extent of Susan’s emptiness and despair."

"Comedian Romesh Ranganathan makes his stage debut as bumbling doctor Bill, who tends to Susan after her initial accident. It’s a decent enough first dramatic outing for Ranganathan"

"The play somewhat outstays its welcome, taking far too long to wind up for its finale. Yet Longhurst’s directorial flair is amply visible at the start"

"Sheridan Smith tackles role with intelligence and sensuality "

"Sheridan Smith scintillates in Ayckbourn’s dated mental-crisis drama"

"If there’s a good reason to see this dated, blunt-edged and ultimately exasperating 1985 work by the doggedly prolific Alan Ayckbourn, it will surprise practically no one that it is Sheridan Smith."

"... the play is a study in acute mental crisis that is constantly undermined by its structural games, the drama choked off by formal conceit. It doesn’t help that the portrayal of psychological agony seems, to 21st-century eyes, crude and unconvincing"

"Michael Longhurst’s production can do little to mitigate those problems, but in Smith, who tackles the role of Susan with intelligence and sensuality as well as anguish, it finds a compelling central focus."

"Smith packs a lifetime of disappointment, frustration and loneliness into Susan. Firing little waspish retorts at her poisonous sister-in-law, she’s clearly the only sharp brain in the marital household"

"For all that, though, the play’s contrivances become tiresome and there’s something crass about its closing scenes... There’s a lack of sensitivity in the writing that feels almost trivialising. Four decades on from its premiere, the play sometimes still startles, but in the end it simply doesn’t cut it."