Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 

Review by Paul Towers, 23/10/25

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Edward Albee

Directed by Cara Nolan

A Made at Curve production

At Curve til Saturday 8^th November 2025

Very rarely do we, in provincial theatre, get to experience two actors at the top of their game in a production that stretches their talents to such a degree as in this staging of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A tight cast of just four are lead by the indomitable Cathy Tyson and Patrick Robinson with able complimentary performances by Tilly Steele and George Kemp.

One night in the apartment of long married couple Martha (Cathy Tyson) and George (Patrick Robinson), having just endured a faculty party thrown by Martha’s influential father, they start their familiar alcohol-induced bickering. A young couple, Nick (George Kemp) and Honey (Tilly Steele), come to visit and are immediately drawn into the older couple’s increasingly bitter and frustrated relationship.

As the drinks trolley is depleted tempers raise and secrets are revealed until finally one secret too many comes to light and all hell breaks out.

Albee wrote the play in 1962, his sixth but first full length successful one. But, by making the set fairly anodyne designer Amy Jane Cook has avoided anchoring the time to any particular period. The dynamics of the relationships are just as pertinent today as they were 60 years ago.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is at Curve until Saturday 8^th November. Grab a ticket and witness some of the greatest theatre performances you will see in a long time.

Pics: Marc Brenner

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