Review: WOMAN IN MIND, Starring Sheridan Smith

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play Woman In Mind is a darkly comic look about mental disintegration and a mid-life ennui that would have rarely been spoken about forty years ago. In the first major West End revival since 2012, director Michael Longhurst presents a startling portrait of a woman who retreats into a fantasy world as a means of coping with her lack of purpose and love in her real life.

The story follows Susan, a vicar's wife who takes a knock to the head and begins to experience two worlds; one of the reality of domestic and the other a fantasical version featuring an entirely imagined life. The audience follow Susan's point of view, experiencing what she sees and hears as she mentally unravels and becoming immersed in an increasingly chaotic and terrifying world.

Sheridan Smith is no stranger to portraying women on the edge. It's just under two years since the musical mess that was Opening Night and nearly three years since Smith's sparkling turn in Shirley Valentine, a play which echoes much of the darkness in this Ayckbourn work. She now returns to the Duke of York's stage in truly compelling form as Susan.

Susan is a lonely woman, yearning for affection and purpose, but Smith also presents her sharper edges; her meaner comments have harsh acidity. Always a performer to bring every emotion to a role, Smith shows a gradual mental disintergration, becoming increasingly fractious as she grapples with what is real and what is fantasy. Her movements become more uncontrolled and her voice increasingly tinged with desperation.

Making his theatrical debut, Romesh Ranganathan unsurprisingly brings a highly comedic slant to useless local GP Dr Rick. Laughing awkwardly, tripping over garden ornaments and being little use to his patient in any meaningful sense.

Tim McMullan is very convincing as Susan's dull husband Gerald, who is unappreciative and inattentive, with more care for his book about the history of his parish than a wife who is falling apart before his eyes. Susan's self-centred sister-in-law Muriel is a delightfully dour Louise Brearley, her dreary personality reflected in her sickly brown, buttoned-up dress. Taylor Uttley is a little underused but suitably glowering as their son Rick, who joined a cult that forbade him to speak to his parents.

In Susan's alternative reality, she has a loving husband (Sule Rimi), a caring daughter (Safia Oakley-Green), a supportive brother (Chris Jenks) and a lovely home. They are all beautiful and overtly kind, serving her endless vintage champagne and asking after her wellbeing. This world is so much brighter and artificially colourful, captured well by set and costume designer Soutra Gilmour and lighting designer Lee Curran. 

The first few scenes are played out in front of the safety curtain (clearly marked perhaps to differentiate what Susan feels as a safe space), with Andrzej Golding's increasingly psychedelic video design reflecting Susan's state of mind. The curtain lifts to reveal Gilmour’s bucolic, grassy background, which becomes the playground for Susan's vision of a scene reminiscent of a nightmarish Alice in Wonderland. 

Today mental health has never been talked about more, but Ayckbourn's work still resonates as the issues faced such as marital distance, lack of purpose and familial fracture are timeless. The play may now be over forty years old, but this deftly-directed production not only proves the longevity of Ayckbourn's writing, but also his originality and huge insight into the human condition.

Woman in Mind is at the Duke of York's Theatre until 28 February, then runs at the Sunderland Empire from 4-7 March and Theatre Royal Glasgow from 10-14 March

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