Reader Reviews
Woman in Mind (Vaudeville Theatre, West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | It's quite brave to bring another Ayckbourn play into the West End so soon after the memorable Norman Conquests, but Woman in Mind is much darker fare. Ayckbourn himself directs and it is tempting to wonder if his stroke influenced the portrayal of Susan's plight at the beginning and end of the play. Janie Dee is excelent as a woman either living a dangerous fantasy life or actually the victim of a severe mental illness. Despite the subject matter there is still a great deal of trademark Ayckbourn humour, the best of it provided by Paul Kemp as a bumbling and besotted GP. - David Baxter | 02 May 09 |
| I remember seeing the original production of 'Woman in Mind' and finding it a one note piecea. Nothing has changed in the intervening 20 odd years except that this production lumbers along in a slow and turgid fashion. Unlike the brilliant Norman Conquests superbly revived at the Old Vic, this play should have been left alone. A dismal evening. - fred | 12 Apr 09 |
| Ayckbourn here cleverly combines a very serious subject - mental breakdown - with irresistible humour. I don't agree with the previous critic that this production was turgid, but it certainly lacked pace, especially in the first act, and I felt that this was due more to the supporting actors than to Janie Dee, whose gradual disintegration was very moving. I laughed long and loud at the scene in which Bill (Paul Kemp) pretends to be able to see the same hallucination that Susan (Dee) can see, and the fracturing of the language at the very beginning and end of the play is very clever. On the night I saw the play, Sarah Lawn replaced Joanna David as Muriel, and the piece suffered for it. This is a relatively minor role, but a crucial one, which I felt that Lawn did not get to grips with. - sc | 04 Mar 09 |
| I couldn't believe how slow, dull, unfunny and unmoving this production is. .. and yet again how Janie Dee gets plaudits for a part done much better elsewhere. A recent Salisbury production with Sarah Woodward directed by Raz Shaw cracked along with a great supporting cast. It was very very funny, pacy and moving. Not emotions I felt at this turgid revival. Similarly with Shadowlands last year: Janie Dee was eclipsed in a another Salisbury production by the wonderful Lisa Eichhorn. How is it that two such really excellent performances don't get a chance in the West End, while Miss Dee's uninspired ones do? - Peter Calman | 17 Feb 09 |
| Also 3.5. I'm going to have to stop attending revivals, at least until Alzheimer's kicks in, because my memory is still good enough to make bad comparisons. Anyone marginally less than a hundred and six probably hasn't seen (Sir) Alan Ayckbourn's 1986 play Woman in Mind or, if they have, didn't retain that experience as a pivotal episode in their theatregoing life. The plot is simple enough: desperate housewife whacks herself on the head with a garden rake, and awakes to an invented world of more charming relatives and a posher house. The staged juxtaposition of her idealised fantasy and disappointing real life eventually overlap in a surreal climax as she goes quietly off her head. What's clever is that this marked Ayckbourn's transition from a writer of frothy comedies suitable for amateurs and provincial repertory companies into a real playwright with issues to expose and a range of techniques which went beyond staging two plays side by side in different auditoria (House and Garden) or three overlapped stories in consecutive plays (The Norman Conquests) by exploring the fourth dimension, with the shift of time and conception - first in Woman in Mind, and subsequently in Henceforward, Communicating Doors and Comic Potential. It also used first person narrative, with the female protagonist speaking directly to the audience, a year before Willy Russell wrote Shirley Valentine. In 1986, it signalled the transition of Julia McKenzie from musical comedy and TV sitcoms to character acting, as despite Ayckbourn's reservations about the casting, she gave what is still considered the performance of her career, and won an Evening Standard best actress award. Fast Forward (that's probably another Ayckbourn play title) to 2009 and Susan is now played by the entirely excellent Janie Dee, and her compelling likeability places the audience directly on Susan's side which makes it tougher for the 'real' characters - dull Vicar husband, torch-carrying local doctor, and lumpen sister-in-law to gain much ground, or any trust that their version of events is more accurate than Susan's. This is further hampered in the current production by the casting of perfectly good actors as husband Gerald or doctor Bill - but they're rather ordinary-looking and not known in the West End and it's hard to see what Janie Dee's character would find attractive in either of them. McKenzie was supported by Martin Jarvis and Peter Blythe, and in the replacement cast, Pauline Collins was matched with Michael Jayston and Ralph Bates. The current under-casting seems to be a fault of many Bill Kenwright shows, but usually only to minor characters, here - despite the credit crunch - in a cast of 8 it seems unnecessary cheese-paring. The revival is directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn himself, and it feels too reverential as the production lacks pace and the frenetic climax isn't nearly surreal or bizarre enough. More reviews at www.blowstar.blogspot.com Times have changed, we need our madness with more special effects. - JohnnyFox | 12 Feb 09 |
| Well, 3.5. This was a departure for Ayckbourn when it was first produced at the same theatre 23 years ago. It has less impact today and despite its timeless story - descent into madness - seems somewhat dated. The biggest problem is the pacing as the first half drags and the second zips along. There is no doubting Janie Dee's talent though and she follows a deeply moving Shadowlands with another excellent performance. I read in the programme that Peter Hall and Ayckbourn were vying to revive this; somehow I think Hall would have brought more objectivity than the playwright himself, who seems to be too reverential to his own play. - Gareth James | 06 Feb 09 |
