Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Tickets and more information: https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/wife/
Booking until: 6th July 2019
Production Photos by: Marc Brenner
Run time: 2hr 30mins.

Wife takes place over 3 decades, starting with one woman’s sexuality identity crisis and how this affects the generations that follow hers, all the while centered around various productions of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.

Long story short, I really loved this. Superbly written by Samuel James, the snapshots into the presentation of sexuality through the years are small but are so compactly written, creating enough substance with wit, humour and honesty. It’s seriously, incredibly funny for what appears to be a heavy piece. Every line is attended to with such, close detail from both performer and writer, that every plot twist that happened had my jaw on the floor.

The show is performed by an incredible six piece ensemble, who juggle multiple roles throughout the show. Some of whom, change characters completely in consecutive scenes and I didn’t even realise it was the same actor until I looked in my programme at the interval, as I found from watching a second to none knockout performance from Joshua James, as one of the standouts. The camp air that surrounds him in his second character is a polar opposite to his hard and tough first character and it’s a transition that works well seamlessly. Another stand out is Karen Fishwick as Claire, our character whose unravelling sets off the entire play. Not only is she a fantastic actress juggling three different characters here but I have to commend her ability to change from a posh English accent to her native Scottish accent at the drop of a hat. And I must commend Callam Lynch who is equally fantastic and also delivers one of my favourite lines in the show (“you should come with a trigger warning”) with enough sting, I felt like it was directed at me.

Performed on a sublime, interchanging set design by Richard Kent, Wife was an absolute delight that I’m very glad I got to see. If you’re looking for something that focuses on queerness in time for Pride Month then head down to Kilburn.

Until next time,