by George Bernard Shaw
Bath / Chichester / Richmond November 2022
Guildford / Cambridge / Truro / Malvern / Cheltenham March April 2023
**** Anthony Banks’s well-performed production rattles along nicely and looks terrific. The curtain rises on a rural scene, picture perfect but wildly out of proportion. The tiny thatched-roof ‘house’ is the size of a gazebo, a reflection perhaps of the way women in those days were trapped in dolls’ houses and the minute lopsided church is another neat metaphor for the place of religion in society then — and now. Georgina Brown, Daily Mail
**** “A barnstorming play, especially in a final mother-daughter confrontation, and with all the twisty argumentative vigour of GBS. Anthony Banks’ cast handle it bracingly: Caroline Quentin is excellent as the mature lady calling herself Mrs Warren and her own real daughter Rose Quentin rises to match her as daughter Vivie.” Libby Purves, Theatre Cat
Mrs Warren’s daughter Vivie has never really known much about her mother. A sensible young woman, she has enjoyed a comfortable upbringing, a Cambridge education, a generous monthly allowance and now has ambitions to go into Law. Is it conceivable that her privilege and respectability has been financed from the profits of the world’s oldest profession? How will Vivie react when she finds out the startling truth about her mother’s business empire and that freedom comes at an emotional price?
Shaw’s acid test of a mother-daughter relationship is one of his most witty and provocative plays. Written in 1894 but banned for thirty years by a Lord Chamberlain who found it “immoral and improper”, Mrs Warren’s Profession is a ripe attack on English hypocrisy and its “fashionable morality”.
Cast Matthew Cottle, Peter Losasso, Caroline Quentin, Rose Quentin, Stephen Rahman-Hughes, Simon Shepherd
Design David Woodhead
Lighting Lizzie Powell
Music & Sound Ben & Max Ringham
Casting Ginny Schiller
Producer Danny Moar