Master Class

Could this transatlantic transfer revival of Terence McNally's 1995 Maria Callas play be any more Broadway? Only if they quadrupled the ticket price and added an angry man outside flogging pretzels.

A smash across the pond last year, Stephen Wadsworth's production is most notable for Tyne Daly's reprisal of her lauded turn as the aging opera diva, teaching a voice master class at New York's Juilliard School.

Your enjoyment of 'Master Class' will hinge on whether you're there to revel in Daly being archly fabulous, or to watch a good play. If it's the former and you've got a high tolerance for pantomimic fourth wall breaking and waspish asides then you'll have a marvellous time.

If it's the latter, you'll be frustrated at how Daly's powerhouse performance is blunted by a text in thrall to McNally's unilluminating vision of Callas as a magnificently wounded wisecrack machine.

When she's not mugging, Daly is very good, a bristling, ambivalent presence, hacking her way through the inane pupils sent her way. But it's only in two sensitive flashback scenes that her performance is truly allowed to sing.