Virginia Woolf's The Waves adapted by Flora Wilson Brown, Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 | until 23 May 2026 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

Virginia Woolf's The Waves

adapted by Flora Wilson Brown

Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 | until 23 May 2026

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

“Rewarding and daring as streams of consciousness flow.”

Virginia Woolf is never the easiest of authors to read and her 1931 experimental novel The Waves presents problems when it comes to putting it on stage although – it goes on a mite too long – Flora Wilson Brown has managed to do so spectacularly well. She is helped by a fine cast directed Julia Laval although there is one directorial ploy who strikes a rather odd note. We meet six children on holiday, three boys, three girls, and follow them over the years as each in turn talks about their life, sometimes at length, sometimes interrupting the other speaker. It all takes place in a white shiny walled set and when they are not speaking the cast stand in a line with their backs to the audience and to be blunt it looks like they are standing in a public urinal having a pee which is not what anybody intended. The central figure is Rhoda played by Zmitrowicz and it is around her memories that the other five characters perform, telling stories of their own, reacting to what she or with someone else not there now dead. It is complicated and often very moving to listen to the assorted streams of consciousness that flow around the theatre – the image that hangs over the piece is of waves advancing and retreating and obliterating what they pour over at times – but, like pretty well everything that Woolf wrote not being an easy read, this  is not an easy play to sit through. Some of the audience found it very funny indeed but one did sit there wondering why. However, it is a rewarding evening and a daring piece to stage – but Jermyn Street does not lack daring.

Cast

Archie Backhouse – Louis

Breffni Holahan – Susan

Pedro Leandro – Neville

Syakira Moeladi – Jinny

Tom Varey – Bernard

Rhoda -Ria Zmitrowicz

Creatives

Director Julia Leval

Set Designer – Tomas Palmer

Costume Designer -Anett Black

Lighting Designer – Lucia Sanches Roidan

Composer & Sound Designer – Matthew Tuckey

Movement Director – Ken Nakajima

Intimacy Directir – Charlotte Rogers

Accent Coach – Mary Howland