Last Updated on October 2, 2026
Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup turn up the heat in this blistering revival of Edward Albee’s classic American play about toxic relationships, frustrated ambitions and lies we tell ourselves
4.0 out of 5.0 starsIf you have ever seen the TV series Mad Men, set in the 1960s, you will be familiar with its portrayal of historically accurate (but inconceivably old-fashioned by today’s standards) social mores. Men went out in the morning in their suits to corner offices and did Important Things while women were expected to stay home, look pretty, be sweet, and excel at motherhood. A minority worked alongside the men in junior or menial jobs; but even for them, casual sexism was part of everyday office life. Imagine, therefore, the uproar caused when Edward Albee’ defining play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? premiered on Broadway in 1962 with an opening scene featuring a drunk woman bursting on stage uttering a profanity as one of her first lines. The premise may be less shocking today more than 60 years later, but the blistering new production at @sohoplace retains its wit, vulgarity and raw emotion, as well as its ability to make us wince as we recognise uncomfortable vignettes in this examination of a complex and toxic relationship.
The powerful new production at the rather lovely @sohoplace theatre – the first purpose-built new theatre in Soho in 50 years – stars Gillian Anderson (The Crown, Sex Educatio, The X Files); Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, The Morning Show, Elephant Man); Josh Dylan and Phoebe Horn, and is directed by Tony and Olivier Award winner Marianne Elliott (War Horse, Angels in America). The theatre is intimate: nobody in the stalls is more than 6 rows from the stage and balconies are only 2 rows deep. And the production is staged in the round, meaning the audience especially in the stalls have little choice but to witness up close and personal the protagonists’ physically intense and emotionally brutal interactions.
I feel the stage/set design alone (by Miriam Beuther who also recently did Stranger Things: The First Shadow both in the West End and on Broadway) is worthy of an award. Rather than a curtain that can be raised, the set is obscured from audience view by a circular wall on which the title of the next act is displayed, marquee style, and which is raised when an act is about to commence. This makes the stage resemble a modern day Colosseum, standing ready for the conjugal gladiators to arrive and commence battle. There are no scene changes during the play’s entire 3 hour running time – everything takes place in the room depicted within this circle. And the room that is revealed when the wall is raised is a keenly observed upper middle-class lounge, complete with mid-century modern artefacts: here an Eames chair and ottoman; there an oval drinks trolley and a wooden mantel clock. There are vinyl records and a player; and the low wooden unit encircling the stage is entirely lined with books on the inside. Before anybody appears on stage, you already know you are in the lounge of comfortably-off intellectuals. But the most brilliant part of the set is that it revolves within its circular wall of bookcases – like a revolving restaurant – but it does this so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. In fact it took me most of the first act to notice that I was now looking side-on at a sofa which had been directly facing my seat at the start of the play. It is a stroke of real genius and allows the set to be dynamic without the need for physical scene changes.
The first act “Fun and Games” opens and we meet Martha, played by Gillian Anderson as she and her husband George (played by Billy Crudup) are arriving home rather tipsily from a party at 02h00. She clatters down one of the aisles in the stalls, surveys her own living room and exclaims: “Shit, this place is a dump!” before arranging herself on the sofa and asking George to make her a drink. We soon learn that the living room is in a New England university town and Martha is the daughter of the president of one of the university colleges, where George teaches. She is in her forties, well preserved but rude; witty and reckless with a tongue as razor sharp as her intellect. George is an associate professor in the History Department at the college and Martha says she married him because her father had once seen George as a potential future president of the college. But George’s life seems to be a story of unfulfilled potential – he once wrote a book but burnt the manuscript – and according to Martha her father also abandoned the idea of George as a successor because of his weakness and impotence. It is an intense and acrimonious relationship, with the two trading arch insults from the start. Each seems to try and outdo the other in the most amusing, cutting or intellectual barb.
Into this already-charged atmosphere arrive new biology professor Nick (played by Josh Dylan) and his wife Honey (played by Phebe Horn) who are new to the faculty and have been invited by Martha, despite the late hour, to join her and George for a nightcap. Nick is young, ambitious and in contrast to George, already highly accomplished, having achieved a Master’s degree at the age of nineteen. Honey is his young wife – sweet and “slim-hipped” but not his intellectual equal. She is demure and uncertain on arrival but promptly gets extremely drunk and spends much of the play off-stage in the bathroom being sick (and being talked about by her husband). The young couple who are both from the Midwest initially exude a clean-cut “aw gee shucks” naivete, are taken aback at the alcohol-fuelled duelling that they walk in on. Think Brad and Janet arriving at Frank N Furter’s castle in The Rocky Horror Picture Show on a stormy night – only here, the storm is inside the house.
Although the first act is already an uncomfortable watch – like having front row seats to the disintegration of a marriage – there is still enough humour for it to feel like a slightly dangerous Noël Coward play. The scene where Martha has goaded Geoge and he returns to the stage seemingly to shoot the three of them is particularly brilliant. For most of this act the audience is left to ponder whether the conflict is partly performative for the guests and whether on some level it is an elaborate erotic game for George and Martha. But by the start of act 2 “Walpurgisnacht”, both Martha and Nick have revealed secrets to Honey and George which they had vowed to their spouses to keep schtum about and from here the conflict escalates incrementally. As the alcohol continues to flow freely, Nick and Honey are increasingly drawn into the conflict and when Martha and George start to invent toe-curlingly awful games (Humiliate the Host; Hump the Hostess; Get the Guests – you get the drift) they have no choice but to participate.
The audience in the first row of the stalls become awkward participants in the action as Honey teeters unsteadily on the stage perimeter; characters get physically intimate; and Martha writhes in drunken hilarity inches from their seats. It’s intense, but you also can’t afford to lose focus as the dialogue is dense and fast paced. By Act 3 “Exorcism”, the cruelty has reached its zenith and both couples have behaved abominably towards their partners. The chasm between the two couples has narrowed considerably as it has emerged that both Martha and Nick feel they have married beneath them to satisfy society’s expectations. In the devastating and chaotic penultimate scene, the fiction at the heart of George and Martha’s marriage is revealed. After Nick and Honey leave we finally see the vulnerability beneath Martha’s bluster and realise that however toxic their marriage is, George and Martha are also inextricably entwined.
The casting is outstanding with Anderson truly inhabiting the character of Martha – nobody does arch quite as well as she does. She is by turns coquettish, witty, coarse and acerbic – but always compelling. When Martha changes into her casual clothes and returns to the stage in tight capri pants and a turquoise jumper, she is as mesmerising and infuriating as vivid green ring-necked parakeet: dazzling, exuberant, noisy and disruptive. Her performance is impressively physical, from crawling on all fours around the stage perimeter clutching a glass, to her steamy scenes with Nick. Crudup by contrast brings an understated but quietly clenched fury to George, affecting a superficially bland reaction to Martha’s barbs but increasingly biting back as they start to find their mark. He ends two of the acts standing perfectly still in the centre of the stage, fists clenched and jaw thrust out, a picture of silent, impotent rage. Dylan brings a wholesome all-American go-getter vibe to Nick while Horn plays Honey with an bland “perfect wife” sweetness – a contrast with Martha’s incandescent fury.
Albee’s dialogue remains a joy – bright, witty and blistering – and it is beautifully handled by the cast and director. Despite how far we have come since 1962, the themes of ambition; societal expectations; how we measure success; social expectations of women; toxic relationships; and the illusions we create for ourselves remain as relevant today as they were sixty years ago. Perhaps the most challenging thing about the play is its three hour duration – there is an interval between Acts 1 and 2 but between 2 and 3 you many not leave your seat. The length gives Albee’s plot and characters time and space to develop fully, but not rapidly. Another audience member asked me during interval: “Do you see this actually… going anywhere in the next 2 hours?” – and I could see why he would ask. But if you are willing to invest the time, who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf will reward you with excellent performances, psychological intensity, dark humour, and a script that positively fizzes. And don’t forget that spectacular revolving stage!
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf runs at Soho Place from 21 September to 19 December and has a run time of 3 hours 30 mins including an interval. Shows start Mon-Sat at 19h00 and Wednesday & Saturday at 13h30. Tickets available here from £40.
Looking for something else to see in the West End? Take a look at our West End theatre previews.
@sohoplace
4 Soho Place
Charing Cross Road
London
W1D 3BG
Telephone: 0330 333 5961
Email: boxoffice@sohoplace.org
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