After Miss Julie by Patrick Marber, Park Theatre London | until 28 February 2026 ⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell
Photo credit: Teddy Cavendish
After Miss Julie
by Patrick Marber
Park Theatre London | until 28 February 2026
⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell
“See it out of interest in finding what Marber has done to Striundberg.”
Patrick Marber has transferred the time of Strinberg's play to the evening of July 26, 1945, the day Labour won its landslide victory and set it in the house of a Labour peer where a party is being held. It does change Strinberg's play in some intriguing ways not all of which work in this new revival directed by Dadlow Lin, partly it has to be said by playing it in the round the kitchen setting becomes difficult to negotiate – the maid Christine, a lovely performance from Charline Boyd, who knows here place in the scheme of things , gets some improbable things to do and the warfare between the predatory Julie, the daughter of the house seizing the chance to pursue John, the lusty chauffeur cum valet, never really comes fully alive. She is more silly than anything and while he has aspirations to better himself in this new world that Labour's victory promises, he is still in thrall to the master-servant relationship he has spent his life in. The play works well enough but one never believes Julie could be quite that silly – the emigrating to New York to run a nightclub with him plan after she has stolen Daddy's cache of cash is, since she apparently has already been there, impossible to believe in. How do they get there? Has he got a passport? Has Christine, who gets invited to come too, got one? Why does he go along with it? Liz Francis is a gorgeous looking Julie but just why she should find Tom Varey's stolid servant so desirable remains hard to understand – they flirt and then fight brutally, a small bird gets beheaded, knives are brandished, cigarettes are smoked endlessly and some implausible clothes get taken off. But one somehow never feels that they are living in the time it is supposed to be taking place in – his uniform, his good suit are both wrong as indeed is her party dress. It is well enough done, sound and lighting are fine and the intimacy director probably got quite a lot to do. But only the betrayed Christine. who believes she has a husband to be in, as she is well aware, the imperfect John, that they will leave service in due course, have a family and a life away from the world of the big house, is plausible. As for the cigarette smoking by all of them it is excessive even for a time when it was commonplace. Perhaps it is simply that we should be in 1945, and we are not – which is arguably due more to the production than to the play. But I didn't believe in any of it, whereas Strindbrrg does take you into a world where it could all happen.
Cast
Liz Francis – Julie
Tom Varey – John
Charlene Boyd – Christine
Creatives
Director – Dadlow Lin
Set & Costume Designer -Ekeabiur Wintour
Fight & Intimacy Director – Yarit Dor
Composer & Sound Designer - Ed Lewis
Lighting Designer – Jack Hathaway
