Want to know if the world premiere of April De Angelis’s play is worth seeing? Find out with our review round up!
WhatsOnStage: *** “Director Anna Mackmin keeps things moving at a great clap, and harnesses the fun De Angelis is having with her language. It’s a breathless, slightly bellowing world, which trembles with feathers in hat.”
Time Out: **** “Anna Mackmin’s production shrieks with life, its atmosphere thickening with each scene. The injustice each woman is served leaks out of them, almost pungently. As Patti, Anushka Chakravarti leaves you near vibrating as she pushes off Kemble’s attacks. Eva Feiler transforms from the exasperated playwright Joanne Baillie to a woman gone mad, Clara, so vividly you forget they’re played by one person. To merge sharp comedy with drama that makes you burn at the injustice is no mean feat, but De Angelis has done it marvellously.”
The Guardian: *** “But dramatically, you do not feel you know Siddons better by the end, though you know about her life, and just what an anomaly she was. It ends with Siddons’ famously humane portrayal of Lady Macbeth in 1785, but we are not given enough emotionally for this moment to feel quite as poignant as it might.”
London Theatre.co.uk: *** “As a vehicle for a fine actress, De Angelis’s play is of real value. The rest feels a draft away, still, from properly robust realisation as more than an exercise in theatrical insider trading that might actually transport an audience somewhere divine.”
Broadway World: ** “The Divine Mrs S is a load of… silliness. And not in a positive way. Directed by Anna Mackmin, it’s difficult to understand what the play wants to say. Its raison d’être could be anything from a bid to have more parts for older actors to an attempt at showing the start of female liberation.”
London Theatre1: *** “The comedic ability of the cast is undeniable, playing off each other and the script alike. While the feminism that underlay this piece is naturally compelling, it might have benefitted from committing harder to its absurdity and moral drive.”
Evening Standard: ** “This is Stirling’s métier, though, as her terrific turn in the otherwise misfiring Private Lives at the Donmar last year showed. She excels at characters who know they are acting, constantly aware of their own glamour, of hitting their marks and their punchlines.”
The Telegraph: **** “Rachael Stirling dazzles as the 18th-century actress Sarah Siddons, in this sparkling reminder of how rare good new comedies are.”
Everything theatre: **** “The Divine Mrs S is billed as a comedy but it is so much more than that. I left smiling quietly at the fun I’d experienced but also at a job still to be done in terms of female empowerment – Thank you Siddons!”
West End Best Friend: **** “Although these themes underpin the play, its main offering is a welcome opportunity to see something of 18th century theatrical ways in a carefully crafted play which is always amusing, often hilarious, and deserves a life beyond its initial run at Hampstead Theatre; and the Press Night audience stuffed with actors and quite a few critics definitely enjoyed seeing versions of themselves and their own concerns on stage.”
The Reviews Hub: *** “For such a feminist story, De Angelis is wise not to introduce scenes from our present as a way to demonstrate the sexism in theatre today. Many other playwrights would have been tempted to bring an explicit parallel for audiences to underline the fact that little has changed when it comes to giving older female actors meaty roles. Siddons sums it up as ‘same part, different bonnet’. However, De Angelis trusts that the Hampstead audience will be able to draw its own conclusions without having the issue blatantly described. When the female playwright, Joanna Baillie, whom Siddons commissions to write her a role, talks about smashing the patriarchy, it’s a lovely anachronism that never needs to be repeated.”
London Unattached: “The Divine Mrs S is packed with theatrical in-jokes and cleverly uses very broad comedy to explore serious themes, particularly regarding the repression of half the population. The play mixes period detail and an 18th-century worldview with anachronisms (talk of the patriarchy, for example) and snatched visions of a more equal footing for women in the future.”
The Spy in the Stalls: **** ““The Divine Mrs S” can’t really be labelled a comedy or a tragedy. But it encapsulates both, and addresses serious issues – serving them up as light entertainment. Historically that would classify it as a ‘Problem Play’. But I have no problem with this one at all. A delightful mix of the traditional and the contemporary.”
Theatre.Revstan.com: *** 1/2 “April de Angelis’ writing is crisp and, at times, deliciously amusing, with some laugh-out-loud humour poking fun at sexism and the arts.”
Fairy Powered Productions: **** “The plot at times stumbles, but the brilliant cast does not. Rachael Stirling is mesmeric in the role of Siddons, and is a calm and comedic counter to the loud and ridiculous Kemble played by Dominic Rowan. Eva Feiler is fabulous in many roles from the female playwright, to a fencing instructor, to a desperate wife on the run from her abusive husband. Anna Mackmin’s production is exaggerated and over the top, everyone playing a caricature with fun effect. The laughs are plentiful and the comedy doesn’t grow old. Do I feel like I know more about Sarah Siddons at the end? Not really. However, it’s a highly enjoyable couple of hours spent watching incredible talent, plus it highlights how little has changed for women on stage (and screen).”
Lou Reviews: *** “The Divine Mrs S has its moments of comic and pointed reference to bringing down the pre-eminence of men, but it could go further. Stirling is worth the admission, but I just wanted a little bit more.”
Plays to see.com: *** “There are, indeed, many impressive individual aspects to the evening, but ultimately the glittering parts do not add up to a fully cohesive whole.”
British Theatre Guide: “Lez Brotherston provides a magnificent setting: a dressing room area in front of the stage of Drury Lane that makes you feel in the heart of the theatre. It is as full of detail as De Angelis’s script, which perhaps packs in too much, so it is fortunate that there are plenty of laughs to keep the energy flowing.”
The Divine Mrs S continues to play at the Hampstead Theatre until the 27th April.