Review: MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION, Starring Imelda Staunton

Conceived in 1893 but silenced by censorship until 1925, Mrs Warren’s Profession has grown only more incendiary in the hundred years since its first public performance. Is that an indictment of our society or a testament to Bernard Shaw’s literary brilliance? Probably both.

At the epicentre is newly graduated Vivie Warren who reunites with her estranged mother Mrs Kitty Warren. The origin of Mrs Warren’s wealth has been a tight-lipped secret, until the penny drops. She has forged an empire through managing brothels, and is both an economic survivor trumping the patriarchal system and a perpetrator sacrificing young vulnerable women for her gain.

The family are divided by a knife-edge of social paradigms and generations, one bound by Victorian morality and patriarchal constraint, the other youthful, idealistic, eager to shape herself in a world free of financial and gender limits. Their clash unfolds beautifully in Dominic Cooke’s streamlined adaptation, stripping away excess babble and channelling Shaw’s drama with the white-knuckle force of Greek tragedy.

Underestimate Bernard Shaw at your peril. Should Vivie take the ethically tainted money? Her dilemma screams through time. Look at the arts institutions stripping themselves of the Sackler name, the headaches for institutions at the receiving end of calls for cancellation and boycotts. But hypocrisy lies coiled in the core of our economic system. Exploitation remains the price of survival. Mrs Warren isn’t resigned history. She lives in us all.

Cooke’s swift touch direction gently dials up the heat with the gentleness of a paintbrush, but with the momentum of punch to the stomach. It starts garlanded with bucolic pageantry, a Chelsea Flower Show vision of a green and pleasant land, only for a ghostly coterie of Mrs Warren’s prostitutes to maraud between scenes, stripping it back layer by layer, flower by flower, until the stage is empty. The grim truth can fester in its place, and the fist clenched morality is ready to take a flamethrower to everything.

There couldn’t be a more capable cast to navigate the gravity shifts. Imelda Staunton reunites with Cooke after last year’s Hello Dolly! – all feline scowl and vinegary jabs until the pressure mounts. That’s when Kitty’s iron clad determination punches through her facade, tinges of East End intonation haemorrhaging deeper with each emotional puncture. Hidden history bleeding from within.

Opposite her is Bessie Carter as Vivie, chirping and fluttering like a magpie, but uneasy wielding her newfound adult confidence. The gimmick that Carter is Staunton’s real-life daughter is easily excusable. Reuben Joseph and Robert Glenister are cartoonish cads vying for Vivie’s affection, Joseph all sixth form swagger and cocked eyebrows, Glenister a blustering aristocrat. But despite the star power and polished performances, it's Bernard Shaw’s eloquent political prowess that commands the spotlight in this quietly bruising revival. 

Mrs Warren’s Profession plays at the Garrick Theatre until 16 August

Buy Tickets to Mrs. Warren's Profession