Laura Wade Archives - North West End UK

2Apr

By Nazaret RaneaNo Comments

Scotland

The Constant Wife – Festival Theatre

On its opening night at the Festival Theatre, The Constant Wife felt less like a revival and more like a reminder of just how ahead of its time W. Somerset Maugham really was. Written in 1926, the play sits neatly in the world of drawing-room comedy, but beneath the polished dialogue and social niceties there is something far more unsettling. It asks what happens when a woman refuses to react in the way society expects. That tension is at the centre of this new version by Laura Wade, directed by Tamara Harvey for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Wade keeps the 1920s setting but softly reshapes the structure, bringing moments forward and adding a flashback that shows Constance discovering her husband’s affair. It is a small change, but an important one. It shifts her from someone who seems...

9Jul

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

The Constant Wife – Swan Theatre

W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, written and set nearly half a century after A Doll’s House, transforms Ibsen’s critiques of marriage into a sparkling 1920s comedy of manners. It’s hard not to compare with Ibsen’s masterpiece, but the purpose here is different: less a rallying cry, more a pragmatic question. What should you do if your perfect husband has an affair? The eponymous Constance is married to the right kind of man, with the right kind of job, in the right kind of house. Unfortunately, the man in question is having an affair with Constance’s best friend. By a stroke of (bad?) luck, Constance catches the two of them in the act - but decides to keep it to herself. Over the course of the next year, she hatches a plan to gain economic independence from her husband in secret...

29May

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

The Watsons – Church Hill Theatre

When Jane Austen died in July of 1817, she left behind six completed novels (four already published and two released not long after her death) and several volumes of unpublished juvenilia, as well as two aborted novel starts. These include Sanditon, which she was working on when she died, and 1803's The Watsons, which marked the transitionary period between her childhood attempts and the later novels with which she would find various levels of success. Austen's subsequent comparatively small canon of works and her status in literature has led to a small but passionate fascination with these lesser works, especially in recent years. While continuations, sequels and spin-offs of Austen are nothing new, over the last decade we have also had big-name adaptations of Lady Susan from her juven...

17Oct

By Karen Morley-ChesworthNo Comments

North West

Home, I’m Darling – Theatre by the Lake

Drama and comedy returns to the stage of Theatre by the Lake with an entertaining play that looks at how we all pick and choose our own narrative of reality - shaped by our rose-tinted glasses approach to history writes Karen Morley-Chesworth. The main theatre is in the round for this production of Laura Wade’s deconstructed rom-com - providing a viewpoint on every perspective of a marriage cloaked in fantasy and collapsing under the weight of pretence. The relationship between Judy and Johnny has been captured within a 1950s bubble - like an insect trapped in amber. Living in the 21st century, they both have a passion for the 50’s style, fashions and music yet take it one step further to take on the philosophy and social norms of the era. From career woman to housewife carer, Jud...