Bette and Joan, Park Theatre, Finsbury Park

Last Updated on October 2, 2025

Up close with the famous feud

4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Off set during the 1962 shoot of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” is the setting for “Bette and Joan”, set to run until 11 January. By chance, I’d seen a reshowing of the black and white classic at Finsbury Park Picturehouse last summer. So, the details of the film, much mentioned in the witty script here, were far fresher in my mind than Blanche’s dead canary on a platter. 

Emmy award winner and BAFTA nominated Greta Scacchi (film credits, Heat and Dust, The Player) slips comfortably back into the role of Bette Davis after originally performing this part in 2011 alongside Anita Dobson.

Co-starring as sparring partner Joan Crawford is RSC and National Theatre actress Felicity Dean (last at Park Theatre as Princess Margaret in A Princess Undone), herself reprising her role from Frinton Summer Festival last year. 

Park Theatre, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2013, has an intimate main space with 200 seats but tonight we were in the even more bijoux side theatre “Park 90” which seats just ninety in an L-shape arrangement.

Thus the audience is incredibly close to the action – the front row needs to tuck their feet in as Davis drags Crawford across the floor rehearsing a key scene for that day’s shoot. The legendary psychodrama was the smash hit that brought these two grande dames out from pasture cementing them as the screen icons we remember them as today. Writer Anton Burge takes us behind the scenes where the warring actresses had made an uneasy truce to appear onscreen together at a point when both their careers and bank balances had taken a dive.  A writer of numerous works featuring strong women (such as plays – Mrs Pat, A Storm in a Flower Vase), his biography of Davis “Bette Davis in 134 Characters” (Fantom Publishing) was published in October.

The set (by Neil Gordon) is a twin pair of dressing rooms with director’s chairs and make-up lights, the leading ladies are often staring at each other rather than the missing mirror. Props and accessories dotted either side making it obvious whose side belongs to who. 

Felicity Dean, as Crawford, comes on stage first, in sky-high heels and a salmon pink silk dressing gown, hair and make-up immaculate. She may have persuaded Bette Davis to join her on this low-budget B-Movie lot but the backstabbing and rivalry on and off-set are sharper than her stilettos.

Greta Scaachi, as Davis, turns up a little later in a casual black dress and cape emphasising a more rounded physique. Both of them look the part even without the arched eyebrows or clown face. As each one performs parallel monologues about what they think of each other, Bette starts applying the famous hideous white make-up with smudged black eyes turning her into Baby Jane. She even performs a bit of the song and dance.

Occasionally they barge through the doors of each other’s dressing rooms to address each other directly. There’s a nice flashback with Crawford in Furs bringing Davis the Baby Jane script after a theatre show for her consideration. They acknowledge each other’s multiple marriages and current struggles but that’s where the sympathy ends in Bette and Joan.

Naturally, there’s a wheelchair here for Crawford to get into character. As she dons the darker dress and black pussy-bow, you start believing you’re seeing bits of the film. The dead rat is not present although much discussed. The fright-wig waits ominously on a mannequin. 

There are nice details in Bette and Joan like Lucky Strike cigarette boxes and vintage Pepsi bottles – Crawford was on the Pepsi-Cola board having been married to the company owner before his death.  As in real life, Scaachi’s Davis orders Coca-Cola dispensers saying she can’t stand the other stuff.

Director Sue Jenkins, herself a successful actress in Brookside, knows something about feisty female performances. Physically, I really loved Felicity Dean’s performance as she slid from being convincingly limp in the wheelchair to strutting about in stilettos. But it’s Greta Scaachi who gets the best lines; one of which was “I always play bitches because I’m not one. And that’s why Miss Crawford plays ladies.”

The story here may be sixty years old, but the themes of young women’s treatment on film sets and the challenge of not being discarded as they age are current. Running into January, Bette and Joan at Park Theatre is sold out however you may be lucky to pick up a return ticket for this explosive little show.

To paraphrase Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got smaller,” – Bette and Joan could do with a bigger stage so more people can enjoy this wonderful show.

 

Bette and Joan – Until 11 Jan 2025
Park Theatre
13 Clifton Terrace
Finsbury Park
London N4 3JP

For more shows to see over the Christmas period, check our preview of the best festive theatre, opera and ballet