★★★★☆Before you head into this zestful revival of Edward Albee’s gorgeously rancorous marital ding-dong, do make sure you’ve had your dinner. After all, its star, Imelda Staunton, has gone out of her way to insist that no one interrupt this three-hour session of flirtation, frustration, agitation and devastation by eating during the show. I’m with Staunton: who needs to spend anything up to £90 a seat just to hear the couple behind them surreptitiously unwrapping a Fox’s Glacier Mint? Luke Treadaway as the biologist Nick and Imogen Poots as his wife, Honey Johan PerssonMind you, when Hurricane Staunton is in full effect, it would take some rustling to outgun her. “What a dump!” announces her character Martha, every consonant a knife jab, as she gets home in the East Coast college town of New Carthage.

Source: The Times March 10, 2017 00:02 UTC