Writer: Hugh Walpole
Adaptor: Rodney Ackland
Director: Brigid Larmour
This pleasingly grown-up play depends on words, suggestion and action rather than gimmickry. It dates from 1935, when it is set, and wears the test of time rather well.
Each of the three titular old ladies has a room in a boarding house. All are poverty-stricken, lonely, anxious and struggling, but they manifest their inner turmoil differently, and the ragged dynamic between them is the driving force in this taut, 90-minute play.
Mrs Lucy Amorest (Julia Watson) is a grandmotherly, tea-brewing type whose only son has disappeared abroad and rarely bothers to write. Catherine Cusack’s nervy Miss May Beringer has just arrived, desperately needs a job (but what can she do?), has nothing to love in life except a chunk of amber and prattles incessantly about her much-mourned dead dog. Then there’s the very strange Mrs Agatha Payne (Abigail Thaw), who has a mysterious past and carries a distinct whiff of Daphne du Maurier’s Mrs Danvers spliced with the Woman in Black.
The production really belongs to Thaw, who puts in a splendidly unsettling performance – her face shrewish and cadaverous under Mark Dymock’s suggestive lighting. She does stillness well, very gently swaying in a rocking chair when she’s not involved in the action, and her mood swings are terrifying and startling. One minute, she’s all sweet reason, and the next, making outrageous personal or tactless comments, such as telling Lucy bluntly that her son is never coming back. Then she switches, at an instant, to sinister menace. She creepily collects dolls, aggressively covets Miss Beringer’s amber, and it’s pretty dark stuff.
Cusack gets the fear and worry right for Miss Beringer. Her character is genteel but poor, and, like the other two, she has no family or friends. The problem – although it’s fairly minor – is that Cusack, who is actually in her late 50s, looks a bit young to be a convincing old lady in 2026. Moreover, the part requires her to be naïvely child-like, so when Agatha dismisses her as an “old bag”, it doesn’t quite sit right.
Julia Watson’s take on Lucy is mannered, but that’s probably deliberate because most of the time her character is acting a role for the other two, although her bustling decency gets a bit wearing. The stage business with the tea is effective. She actually spoons tea into a teapot from a tea caddy, although the old copper kettle on the gas ring would not have had a whistle.
Juliette Demoulin’s set manages to suggest three rooms within the Finborough’s limited space, and that’s neatly done. Lucy’s tea table occupies centre stage with Agatha’s rocking chair at the back and Miss Beringer’s bed at stage left.
It is often alleged that there are too few parts around for older women. This play offers three meaty ones, so it’s surprising that this is the first London revival for 30 years.
Runs until 19 April 2026
