The Year of Magical Thinking - TNT

When novelist Joan Didion's husband of 40 years died of a heart attack in 2003, she refused to accept her loss. Didion's solution was to commit her feelings of devastation and denial to paper, and the resulting memoir subsequently became a bestseller. By the time she was approached to turn it into a play, her daughter, too, had died after a series of illnesses. You'd expect that hearing the strategies Didion adopted in order to cope with this cruel double bereavement would be emotionally cathartic. Yet (despite an impressive and heartfelt solo performance by Vanessa Redgrave) her testimony, when transferred to an almost bare stage, evokes sympathy and detached recognition rather than raw emotional involvement.
Lyttelton at the National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 (020-7452 3000). Until July 15. £10-£41