Hedda, Gate Theatre, 11 Pembridge Road, Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 3HQ
By Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Lucy Kirkwood

August 21 to October 4
Tickets £16/£11
Monday to Saturday 7pm, Saturday matinees 3pm
http://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/home.aspx

Hedda Gabler has been given a modern setting in the Gate Theatre. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, Ibsen’s ill-matched couple are transported to a ramshackle London flat.
Lucy Kirkwood’s adaptation is very good. She is sparing with alterations and the ones she makes chime with the spirit of the original.
There are obvious problems with updating this play – Hedda’s desperation was more comprehensible in 1890; she was more thoroughly trapped – but Cara Horgan sees to it that these problems are smoothed over.
Her Hedda is compelling. She arrests the attention of the audience before the play starts as she sits in stockings in a cloud of smoke and despair.  She is impressive throughout in her switches from snapping sarcasm to dejection to charming repartee, and her frequent, tiny movements out of her husband’s reach seem horribly instinctive. She also has a great collection of outfits.
Tom Mison’s ingenuous, bumbling George is excellent too, and often funny. His straightforward cheerfulness is ridiculous whenever Hedda is around and he has thought up some hilarious body language to make the most of this. There’s a good moment of amazed delight when his wife remarks: “That’s a nice shirt, George. Very…jolly.”
One of Kirkwood’s boldest changes is taking a little delusion away from George. His silly optimism is given a modicum of self-knowledge towards the end. This gives him the stature to earn more sympathy from the audience.
The rest of the cast is also good. Adrian Bower is well cast as the flawed genius and Cath Whitfield makes a convincing dowdy spinster cowering under the glare of Hedda Gabler.
Ibsen’s drama is in good hands.