Dear Liar by Jerome Kilty, Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 | until 7 March 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

Photo credit: David Monteith-Hodge

Dear Liar

by Jerome Kilty

Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 | until 7 March 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

“Very well performed and directed revival.”

Strong performances from Rachel Pickup as Mrs Patrick Campbell and Alan Turkington as George Bernard Shaw, plus skilful direction of Kilty's play based on the letters the pair sent one another over nearly forty years a thoroughly civilised, engrossing evening. She may be pretty well forgotten today and his plays are seldom performed now, but in her time she was a great lady of the theatre who created the role of Eliza in Pygmalion at the age of 49, and he was a playwright who had hit after hit even if, as he lived into a ripe old age, he is now remembered, if at all, as a sage with a white beard issuing pronouncements from his Ayot St Lawrence home. Here he is a lusty chap who has a wife who seems to allow him some liberty, she has two husbands for most of the time they corresponded. Pickup creates a splendid great lady whose career suffered with the passing of the years – chances old actresses now enjoy were not open to her. In her declining years she ended up in France with yet another pet dog prevented because of our quarantine laws from coming back to Britain and, wanting to write a book, asked him if she could use his letters which she had kept. He objected but sent her the letters she had written, which he had kept, and she stored them in a hatbox which – she died before the Germans invaded Paris – was sent back by the friend clearing things up to England and hence Lilty's play. There is probably – no certainly – a better one to be written about the pair but this revival stands up well enough on the play's own merits. Apart from her problems with Eliza's accent there is the disclosure that when she took the play to America it was the title which fazed audiences who did not know what it meant or how to pronounce it – called My Fair Lady with added music it is of course doted upon by audiences everywhere. It adds up to a night out worth braving the rain to enjoy. And you learn how she decided to stage Pygmalion herself, and he had to make her understand that she could star but she needed a co-star to play Higgins, or the audiences would not come. In the end it went to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Cast

Rachel Pickup – Mrs Patrick Campbell – Stella

Alan Turkington – George Bernard Shaw – Joey

Creatives

Director – Stella Powell-Jones

Set & Costume Designer – Tom Paris

Lighting Designer – Chris McDonnell

Sound Designer & Composer – Harry Blake