Mrs Affleck - This is London

Samuel Adamson’s new version of Little Eyolf transports the Allmers family from the fjords of Norway in 1894 to the Kent Coast in 1955, renaming them Affleck en route but staying true to Ibsen’s basic themes. Other characters’ identities are also changed and a couple more are added to this emotionally charged adaptation in which the guiltridden relationship between a husbandand wife (Alfred and Rita – the only ones to retain their original names) is ripped even further by the death of their crippled young son.

Back from a stay in the Highlands, Angus Wright’s distant, tortured Alfred has abandoned the book he was writing and vowed to concentrate on the education of their son, Ollie. Meanwhile Claire Skinner’s immaculate Rita, posed elegantly in her pristine grey kitchen (designed by Bunny Christie) looks as perfect – and as untouchable – as a 50’s advert. But her soignée exterior belies a desperately possessive and unhappy woman, physically rejected by her husband and shamefully resentful of the child who’s damaged, recriminatory presence – and, later, absence – stands like a barrier between them.

Marianne Elliott’s production reveals all the painfully tormented disquiet of the near incestuous intimacy between Alfred and his half-sister Audrey (Naomi Frederick) but, well acted though it is, Adamson’s sometimes awkward script neither improves nor illuminates the original.

Cottesloe