Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is a book with a formidable reputation. Its seismic cultural impact is still fascinating to ponder a century later. Occasionally, a work of art will emerge in society that causes a ripple on the lake of consciousness, creating waves for years to come. This novel falls into that rare category. Woolf isn’t the only one credited with heralding modernism, but she wears some very big boots in that department. Adding to Woolf’s power is the fact the Department of Modernism is mostly filled with men. As is life.
Woolf not only kicked against the patriarchy, but linked men’s power to the horrors of colonialism, war and poor mental health. Woolf may have pointed out the factually obvious, but it was almost unsayable at the time. The world woke up. Feminism, sexual politics and ongoing critical discussions around empire owe a huge debt to Woolf’s work. Arguably, she got the ball rolling. Big time.
Like that other modernist classic, Ulysses by James Joyce, Mrs Dalloway is not an easy book to read. Concerned with a single day in summer, it features a range of characters and their interlapping internal dialogues. As narrators they are unreliable, petty, arrogant and fragile. Their streams of consciousness are rich, but frustrating, with complex diversions into seemingly irrelevant territories. The genius of this literary tactic is that the reader is confronted by the concept of their own internal dialogue. This can be very depressing. Welcome to modernism.
Approaching Woolf artistically requires deep thought and radical creativity. Thankfully, critically acclaimed director Jen Heyes and Olivier Award-winning artist Kit Green are noted devotees of experimental performance and novel approaches to theatre. The pair have adapted Mrs Dalloway into a multi-media metatheatre experience. Green enters the auditorium as herself, greeting the audience with the nervy energy of an actor about to perform a one-woman show at Wilton’s Music Hall. Ironically, she’s about to play Clarissa, an infamously anxious and insecure party host.
The fourth wall was broken as the show began, reality and artifice jostled for attention. Is Green genuinely stressed by the prospect of this show, or is this part of a performance? She then hit the audience with the reality of right now, by discussing the Strait of Hormuz alongside the cost-of-living crisis. If anyone felt affronted by this rude awakening, Green quickly served them a jaunty history lesson. Woolf wrote Mrs Dalloway following a global pandemic, during a technical revolution and while five Prime Ministers dashed in and out of Downing Street in the space of a few years. Green hit home the parallels. That was then, but it is also now. In fact, it’s a live situation.
One suspects that Woolf would approve of this polite, but confrontational approach. Director Jen Hayes has produced Mrs Dalloway like a polished 2026 remix of a 100-year-old tune. There’s samples, guest vocalists and quickfire edits for a Tik Tok crowd. Kit Green plays 16 characters, including Woolf herself. There are pop-up cabaret songs. It swings from heavy to very playful. Audience participation included three lively middle-aged women, plucked from the crowd to play ‘What’s The Time Mr Wolf’ live on stage. The audience was also prompted into creating chair-based choreography to a disco tune. Monika Koeck’s engrossing video design brought vivid and sometimes abstract images to evoke a June day in London,1923. The visuals also delivered an array of characters from the novel. Green would dip into dialogue with differing digital versions of herself, playing a variety of roles. This is mega meta, super post-modern and possibly a form of madness. The slippery nature of sanity also happens to be a major theme in Mrs Dalloway.
Kit Green is a seasoned chameleon, creator of characters Dame Ida Barr and Tina C, both radically different, irreverent and clever. Those broad acting talents get to shine in this production, bringing grim depth to the role of suicidal Septimus and physical comedy to Lucy the maid, who Green captures brilliantly. Lucy’s working class, careworn humour provides much needed warmth among the encroaching gloom and Green evidently revels in the opportunity.
Thanks to groundbreaking creativity and taut direction from Jen Heyes, the pair have hatched a thoughtful and unique show. It takes the many head-spinning layers of Mrs Dalloway and adds a few more for fun. It’s a theatrical mille feuille that juggles genres and genders. Fans of the original text are rewarded with the best bits. Virginia virgins get a high-concept tasting menu. The book’s language and themes are carefully honoured and highlighted. It’s a touch academic, but also quite punk. Green is a trans woman, playing a maze of men and women. That shouldn’t be viewed as radical and inspirational, and yet, right now, it is. Woolf explored the fluidity of gender in Orlando and scholars to this day are still fascinated by its fantastic rebellion. Jen Heyes often brings a sense of mischief to her shows, especially when darkness suffuses the source material. That formula is in full effect for her riff on Mrs Dalloway. If the curious ghost of Virginia Woolf has descended on Wilton’s Music Hall, she will no doubt be smiling on this show. Inwardly, of course and with an unknowable twinkle in her eye.
Mrs Dalloway is at Wilton’s Music Hall until 20th June 2026, What’s On – Wilton’s Music Hall
Reviewer: Stewart Who?
Reviewed: 18th June 026
North West End UK Rating: