Photo credit: AlexBrenner
The Master Builder
by Henrik Ibsen
The Arcola Theatre, Studio 1, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 | until 21 November 2026.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell
“Greg Hicks and an Ibsen play – unmissable.”
Greg Hicks gives a powerful and compelling performance as Halvard Solness, the ageing architect whose career is threatened by younger men coming up in his profession. When he is confronted by Hilde Wangel, a young woman he had met ten years before, who sees him as an inspiration and he quite simply fancies being a lecherous man, he finds the sins of his past overwhelming his present. Mehmet Ergen has assembled a strong cast, and they rise to the demands of this version by David Edgar with Hicks in particular creating a troubled, complex man who, in spite of a fear of heights, climbs the tower on his latest building to celebrate its completion at her demand. The sole reservation for me is one about the set - glossy black floor, a few tables and on the back wall assembled models of Solness's houses with their towers which somehow did not create the suffocating small-town world of the play, and the models simply were a distraction. It also required Hicks to clamber on and off tables which too became distracting. But I could be alone in that. Louisa Binder's Hilde is gorgeous to look at and as foolish as they come with her dreams of what a master builder should be now and of the man who so excited her when first met. Solness is envious and afraid the young man who works for him, Ragner Brovik, could so easily take his place as the town's master builder and also carries the burden of his past – his children died in a fire in a house he had built – and the debt he owed to his wife Aline played by Sally George who understands him and his fears. He ends climbing the tower of the new home he has built for Aline, at Hilde's behest only to be overcome by vertigo and, distracted by the white shawl she is waving at her master builder, plunges to the ground. Hicks has created a Master Builder of tragic proportions and Binder's Hilde is the perfect ageing man's fantasy. This is one of those plays like Hamlet that actors tick off their bucket list and what Hicks and the rest of the cast have done for Ergen makes it one worth catching
Cast
Louisa Binder – Hilde Wangel
Sally George – Aline Solness
Peter Guinness – Doctor Herdal
Greg Hicks – Halvard Solness
Robin Hooper – Knut Brovik
Ryan Wichert – Ragner Brovik
Jade Williams – Kaja Fosli
Josh Picton – understudy Ragner Brovik
Creatives
Director – Mehmet Ergen
Designer – Robert Innes Hopkins
Lighting Designer – Richard Williamson
Sound Designer & Composer – Deniz Dortok
Assistant Director – Aoife Beaumont
