Rodney Ackland’s The Old Ladies is set in an unnamed English cathedral city in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression. As with many people at that time, the three old ladies in this piece find themselves in difficult circumstances with dwindling savings. May Beringer (Catherine Cusack), Lucy Amorest (Julia Watson) and Agatha Payne (Abigail Thaw) are living in separate rooms in a dingy house, finding what little pleasure they can in a limited and uneventful life. These are three women who in any other circumstances would likely never have crossed paths and now have only an uneasy relationship of necessity. When the potential for an infusion of a substantial amount of money unexpectedly enters the picture, greed takes over, provoking a degree of malice that can only end in tragedy.
Based on the 1924 novel by Hugh Walpole, The Old Ladies of the title are broadly drawn characters; there’s the kindly one (Lucy) who hankers after hearing from her son who has gone abroad in the hopes of making his fortune; the timid, sickly May, who prefers dogs to people; and the bitter and manipulative Agatha, whose blunt comments to her housemates descend into outright cruelty and bullying when she senses the possibility of money coming her way. Cusack, Watson and Thaw are prodigiously talented performers, and all play their characters to the hilt. But Brigid Larmour’s direction injects little subtlety or nuance into what is necessarily also a fairly static piece within the confines of the house. The claustrophobic atmosphere is evident from the outset, the women leading an isolated existence with little interaction except with each other.
Juliette Demoulin’s set is appropriately gloomy, all browns and greens, echoing the underlying dark feeling of the play. The costumes by Carla Joy Evans are similarly on point for the period.
While The Old Ladies is an old-fashioned piece, it does emphasise the toxic effect that greed can have on relationships, especially when those connections are already hanging by a thread.
The Old Ladies is playing at the Finborough Theatre until 19th April. https://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/
Reviewer: Carole Gordon
Reviewed: 26th March 2026
North West End UK Rating: