Peter Viney's Blog

By George Bernard Shaw

Directed by Dominic Cooke
Designed by Chloe Lamford
Compioser Angus Macrae

Sonia Friedman Production, Garrick Theatre, West End
National Theatre Live Streaming
Poole Lighthouse, Tuesday 28th October 2025

CAST
Imelda Staunton – Mrs Kitty Warren
Betsy Carter – Vivie Warren
Kevin Doyle – Reverend Samuel Gardner
Robert Glenister – Sir George Crofts
Reuben Joseph – Frank Gardner
Sid Sagar- Mr Praed

There are detailed notes on Shaw, and his long preface to the play in the review of Mrs Warren’s Profession – Bath 2022. That starred Caroline Quentin and Rose Quentin playing mother and daughter. I assume it inspired another mother & daughter version here with Imelda Staunton and Betsy Carter. The parent and child pairing was seen with Lia Williams and Joshua James in The Vortex at Chichester in 2023. In 2002, Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson were both in Lady Windermere’s Fan, which we saw. It is all in the family. Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter (Mr Carson, the butler in Downton Abbey) are married, and Betsy is their daughter. We could see a strong resemblance to her dad. Kevin Doyle, who plays the vicar in this is the footman, Mr Moseley in Downton Abbey. So Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter and Kevin Doyle are all in the Downton Abbey film versions.

This is very different to the 2022 version. The stage is a circular revolve, with a large round / oval light above. Yet it’s on a proscenium stage. There is no set in Acts 1 to 3, just a bench and chairs with grass and a flower bed. Much needed humour is injected in assembling the garden chairs. Shaw wrote it in four acts, ignoring the fact that Shakespeare is five acts, and most plays of his era were three acts. That’s Shaw. He knew better. After Act 3, the lawn is rolled up. In Act 4, a curved back set drops down from above. It all works smoothly, but it leaves the lit stage surrounded by dusty black, and the cottage where they have dinner and the church are imagined off stage in the murky gloom.

Basic plot. Vivie Warren is a new Cambridge maths graduate. Her mother is coming to visit her. She had only met her on odd days here and there over twenty years though an expensive education had been lavished on her. Her mother, Kitty Warren, is preceded by a friend, Mr Praed an architect, an artistic and intellectual type which we know because he has a beard and corduroy jacket AND glasses. Kitty arrives with Sir George Crofts a beefy tweedy aristocrat.

The garden neighbours the vicarage, and the vicar’s son, Frank Gardner, is keen on Vivie. The vicar berates his son as an idle sponger, which he is. Reverend Gardner says he once wrote embarrassing letters to a woman twenty years ago and she refused to return them.

The vicar is shocked to see Kitty for it is she, the old love. Sir George fancies Vivie. No one knows who her father is, and George wants to be assured it’s not him before making a play. The Reverend is in shock. Might it be him? Or Mr Praed? Kitty assures her daughter that it’s none of the three “at least.”

As with 2022, the hapless vicar is a role with much scope for comedy, and Kevin Doyle is extremely funny playing it. He is forced to invite Sir George and Mr Praed to stay at the vicarage. The next morning, he has a terrible hangover.

In a long heart to heart Kitty explains her life story to Vivie. This is a tour de force for any female actor, and in this Imelda Staunton is completely brilliant. I thought she found just the right accent too, very light Estuary. She had three sisters, one died from working in a white lead factory, one had a drunk as a husband and lived in poverty with three kids. Kitty slaved in awful jobs, until the third sister turned up in furs. She was a prostitute (the word never appears) and persuaded Kitty that it was a better life. Kitty became rich. Much Shavian discussion on marriage as a form of prostitution, and capitalist wage slavery.

In Act 3, Sir George proposes to Kitty, and usually gets rough, though not here. He reveals that he is Kitty’s business partner and they still run an international chain of brothels. Vivie is horrified, as she understood her mother’s start in life, but not that she was still a high class madam. Frank arrives and sees Sir George off at gunpoint. Sir George’s revenge is telling them that Reverend Gardner is Vivie’s father, so Frank and Vivie are brother and sister.

In Act 4, the office set descends. Frank and Kitty have a long discussion, then Mr Praed, then Kitty arrive. The highpoint of the play is the long and angered discussion between Kitty and Vivie. I can’t imagine it being done any better.

So the USP of this production is having nine women in Victorian underwear hovering in the gloom on act changes as well as circling around the stage and changing the set, rolling up the lawn, bringing on the office desks. That’s a sledgehammer emphasis on the source of Mrs Warren’s money, and Shaw who was partial to sledgehammer plots would have approved, not that he could get away with it. It took quarter of a century to get the play performed on the public stage anyway. Nine women? Loads of production money. It gives nine female actors a start role and credit, but I thought a few B&W projections would have done the job.

The biggest problem, as in 2022, is some appalling dialogue by Shaw. Kitty’s monologues are fine, the best part of the writing. However Frank is given garbage to speak. All credit to Sid Sagar for performing them so well. The dialogue with the Reverend is awful. The baby talk between Frank and Vivie is excruciatingly bad writing, drivel. Shaw wrote it a couple of years after seeing Lady Windermere’s Fan, and obviously believed that along with a maternal mystery he could write romantic comedy lines. Oscar Wilde could. Bernard Shaw couldn’t.

According to the Observer review it’s heavily cut. I came home and skimmed the text and couldn’t see evidence for more than odd lines. But I really felt the paternity theme was rushed through, and not given due attention. Was it simply that it had stuck in my mind more prominently from 2022 than here? I had assumed that Sir George’s finger pointing at Reverend Gardner was merely malicious, where this time it seemed to be fact.

All the acting is excellent. Both Imelda Staunton and Betsy Carter give five star performances. However, the set didn’t impress me. I thought the hovering tarts unnecessary. I thought the full focus on Kitty and Vivie diminished other roles. The production photos say it all: there are no photos of the Frank / Vivie interactions nor the long Vivie / Sir George scene. It’s all about the two women.

Overall? Same as last time:

Acting: *****
Production ***
G.B. Shaw **

THE VENUE:

NT live at Poole Lighthouse yesterday. The play had a running time of 1 hr 56 m with no interval. OK, directors like that, believing an interval breaks the mood, though with this four act play GB Shaw there is a strong cut point after Act 2 or especially after Act 3 with a major location and set change. The thing is, the tickets said 7 pm. We were all in and seated at 7 pm. Then we sat staring at a blank screen with no announcement for 15 minutes, making the seated time effectively 2 hours 15 minutes. My assumption is that the streaming was due to start nationwide at 7.15, so they should have put that on the tickets or announced it. (Door: 7 pm Start 7.15 pm). I know there are three hour plus films, but I think 90 to 100 minutes is a well-researched maximum for lectures and for theatres. Then you need a break, and to stand and move. I haven’t even discussed bladders in ageing audiences. I have been in an unbroken 2 hour 30 minute Julius Caesar at the RSC. That is sheer director arrogance. You don’t sell any ice creams either.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
Susannah Clapp, The Observer:
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.

four star
Time Out ****
The Independent ****
What’s On Stage ****

three star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ***
The Telegraph ***
The Times ***
Daily Mail ***
The i Paper ***

two star
The Standard **
The Stage **

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

PLAYS BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Candida, Theatre Royal Bath, 2013
Man & Superman, National Theatre, 2014
Pygmalion, Nuffield, Southampton 2016
Mrs Warren’s Profession – Bath 2022.
Mrs Warren’s Profession – NT Live 2025

DOMINIC COOKE (DIRECTOR)
Rock Follies, Chichester 2023
Follies, by Stephen Sondheim, National Theatre 2019
Comedy of Errors, National Theatre 2012

IMELDA STAUNTON
Travels With My Aunt, Chichester 2016
Gypsy, Stephen Sondheim, Chichester 2014
Another Year (film) 2010
Downton Abbey (film) 2019
Downton Abbey – A New Era (film) 2022

BETSY CARTER
Bridgerton (TV series) 2020-21

SID SAGAR
The Tempest, Wanamaker 2016
Cymbeline, Wanamaker 2015

KEVIN DOYLE
Downton Abbey (film) 2019
Downton Abbey – A New Era (film) 2022