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Boa

  • Theatre, West End
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
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Time Out says

3 out of 5 stars

Great actress Harriet Walter stars alongside her real-life husband Guy Paul in this touching play about marriage.

Having just played King Henry as a hardcore mob boss in the Donmar’s all-female, prison-set ‘Henry IV’, the great Harriet Walter goes all wispy as a dancer in the title role of this new play from up-and-comer Clara Brennan. It is about as far removed from Shakespeare’s king as it’s possible to be.

Which is not to say ‘Boa’ doesn’t have bite. Brennan’s play is a portrait of a relationship and there are moments when both parties turn into venomous snakes. Walter is joined on stage by her real-life husband, Guy Paul, as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Louis, and Brennan’s script slithers and slides through the two lovers’ history.  

Louis turns up backstage – an unwanted intruder – before Boa (a weird nickname for Belinda) is about to go on. They seem to be over each other, but he says he needs to tell her something and they begin reminiscing about how they first met. In these early moments the set-up feels like a too-convenient way of jumping back and forth through time. But eventually the stories of this trouble and strife and her pot and pan become hard not to enjoy – there’s humour, devastation, sadness and hatred in equal measure.

There’s too much booze, not enough talking and not enough kids in their life together. But there is love, which, Brennan suggests, is never an easy thing to feel. It’s a convincing, entertaining script, well written and well performed, but it plods a little and often the characters feel too remote, so that a final twist lacks intensity.

As you’d hope, Walter and Paul make a good match. Walter’s Boa is both seductive and troubled while Paul as Louis is upright and uptight, occasionally revealing a disarming vulnerability. They bring to the two characters a much-needed air of wisdom and experience. As Valentine’s Day approaches, be warned: ‘Boa’ is not a great lesson in how to conduct a marriage. It is, however, a good reflection of the realities of how people love.

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