Review: ORLANDO, Garrick Theatre
Photo credit: Marc Brenner
After their acclaimed West End debut in Anna X last year, Emma Corrin returns to the London stage as the eponymous Orlando in Neil Bartlett’s new adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel.
Orlando follows the story of an Elizabethan nobleman who, after thirty years of love and lust and adventures as a foreign envoy, wakes up as a woman. Woolf’s story whisks our now-heroine throughout centuries of history, exploring the interactions of gender, society, love and sex.
Bartlett’s adaptation realises the gay abandon and lusty joy of Woolf’s story for the stage. The most strikingly imaginative element of Bartlett’s script is the character of Virginia Woolf herself, who appears onstage as a chorus of diverse actors, writing the story as it unfolds, laying bare her creative process. As much as this rendering of the author beautifully reflects the multi-faceted identities of Orlando, the chorus stumbles slightly from a lack of characterisation and some stilted unison line-delivery.
But the cast in their other roles are strong, led by the elegantly roguish and brilliantly charming Emma Corrin. Corrin performs Orlando’s developing age, gender and wisdom with such lightness and nuance, beginning as a smirking, cocky adolescent, growing to a lovelorn, jaded young man, and becoming a sexually confident woman striving for freedom and autonomy.
Deborah Findlay provides solid support as Mrs Grimsditch, Orlando’s dresser and cultural translator. Findlay works as much for the audience as for Orlando, and garners most of the evening’s laughs.
This play is packed full of puns and brimming with literary jokes, so brace yourself for obnoxiously loud belly laughs from audience members wanting to demonstrate that they got that reference to Romeo and Juliet.
Orlando is a joyful play that tells you more about life and love than any other we can imagine.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett
Orlando plays at the Garrick Theatre until 25 February 2023, with tickets available here.