The House Of Bernarda Alba review: Five sisters stuck in a sad (and sweary) house with a very forbidding mother, writes PATRICK MARMION

The House Of Bernarda Alba (Lyttelton National Theatre, London)

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Shortly after writing The House Of Bernarda Alba in 1936, the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was shot by fascist militiamen as a homosexual and suspected communist.

In doing so, they simultaneously silenced the finest Spanish writer of the 20th century and ensured that his last play would stand as a monument against them.

The drama has now been revived at the National Theatre starring Harriet Walter as the forbidding matriarch Bernarda Alba, who rules her five grown-up daughters like a prison governor.

It is a pitiless allegory of political, sexual and psychological oppression that embodies the social conflicts of the period in the quintet of sisters restlessly incarcerated in the home of the title.

Each of them nurses fantasies of getting their mitts on the village hunk, Don Pepe, who is betrothed to the eldest, Angustias (the always riveting Rosalind Eleazar).

Do not hope, though, for the colour and castanets of the Iberian peninsula. Rebecca Frecknall’s production, designed by Merle Hensel, sets the play instead in a transparent, toothpaste-tinted dolls’ house, arranged over three floors as a convent, prison or mental hospital. Take your pick.

The drama has now been revived at the National Theatre starring Harriet Walter as the forbidding matriarch Bernarda Alba

With all the women wearing black (except the youngest, who dons a bright green frock in a moment of spirited defiance), colour and music are regimentally excluded as the family embark on eight years of mourning for the father. The only standout item is a brown rifle hanging on the wall of the dining room, acting as an unmistakable spoiler.

The big unanswered question, however, is what all this means today? There is a danger of it being reduced to a modern liberal cautionary tale.

And what, on the other hand are we to make of the claim that women without men grow desperate and mad? Perhaps because she was one of the writers of the global TV hit Succession, Alice Birch’s very free version of the play coarsens the poetry of Lorca’s writing by embroidering it with gratuitous F-words.

Even Walter’s stickler Bernarda Alba is not immune: ‘I fight constantly to make people decent, but the goat will always go to the f***ing mountains.’

Although such artless profanities soil her spotless home and undermine her lofty status, Walter (who was also involved in Succession, as Logan Roy’s ex-wife, and mother of Kendall, Shiv and Roman) cuts an impressively forbidding mother superior.

With parchment skin lined like an Ordnance Survey map, she is at first detached, arid and cruel.

Colour and music are regimentally excluded as the family embark on eight years of mourning for the father

As things start to unravel, we glimpse the pain behind her stoical mask. And she is made to pay for discarding the warnings of her peasant housekeeper (Thusitha Jayasundera) – the only character licensed to speak truth to her power.

Also notable in a tightly drilled cast, Eleazar’s Angustias – pushing 40 and never been kissed – combines frightening mental fragility with alarming flares of ferocity.

And as the youngest, Adela, Isis Hainsworth’s wish to be manhandled by Pepe is memorably and vigorously fulfilled through the locked gates of the family compound. Not normally seen on stage, James McHugh’s steamy Pepe also haunts proceedings as a silently cavorting dancer, suggestively representing forbidden desire.

This is not a play that ends well for anyone. Great as it is, the conclusion is as shocking as the barbarous execution of its author. Do not expect winter cheer.

Joyous madcap Pan takes to the stage with a croc of gold!

Peter Pan goes wrong (Lyric Theatre, Shaftsbury Avenue, London)

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Tidings of great joy! Misfit Theatre, the stage anarchists behind the plays that ‘go wrong’, are in the West End for Christmas.

Their Peter Pan is an exquisitely choreographed slapstick spoof.

Posing as plucky amateurs, they pull it off like seasoned pros. All the J.M. Barrie ingredients are here, with Oliver Reed look-alike Harry Kershaw leading the mayhem as the show’s fictional director, who also plays Mr Darling and Captain Hook in end-state exasperation with cast and audience.

While Adam Meggido’s manic production always flirts with disaster, it survives its figurative walk down the plank – and even the perils of a skateboard-propelled crocodile 

Their Peter Pan is an exquisitely choreographed slapstick spoof. Posing as plucky amateurs, they pull it off like seasoned pros

Just as brilliant is Matthew Howell as the giant Newfoundland dog who gets stuck in the cat-flap, while Greg Tannahill as Peter Pan on overhead wires crashes into scenery and spins like a dysfunctional satellite.

Action-packed from start to finish, the show’s narrator (Jean-Luke Worrell) is harassed by his roll-on throne which refuses to budge and pitches him off.

There is so much to genuinely go wrong in this helter-skelter caper that there must surely be a serious risk of real injury. Yet while Adam Meggido’s manic production always flirts with disaster, it survives its figurative walk down the plank – and even the perils of a skateboard-propelled crocodile.

A genuine hoot for young and old ensuring that once again, with Misfit, you really can’t go wrong.

Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime (Jermyn Street Theatre, London) 

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By Veronica Lee 

What a pun-tastic treat: a clever mash-up of Greek mythology and pantomime as writer/director John Savournin recounts the Odyssey in panto form.

His witty script is bursting with groaners – he must have raided a Christmas cracker factory — while David Eaton’s music and lyrics are complicated and equally funny (‘Here on Mount Olympus/We can hear the whimpers’).

What a pun-tastic treat: a clever mash-up of Greek mythology and pantomime as writer/director John Savournin recounts the Odyssey in panto form

The terrific five-woman cast – Amy J Payne, Meriel Cunningham, Rosie Strobel, Emily Cairns and Tamoy Phipps – play multiple roles and sing beautifully as they give their all in energetic performances that only occasionally dip.

This is a wonderfully well-crafted show where no previous knowledge of the Odyssey is necessary – indeed that may help, as Mr Savournin delves into other myths and feeds them into his own story, which gets madder by the minute (there’s a swine-loving monster and a constipated Trojan horse), while paying affectionate homage to pantomime tropes, including audience participation. Great fun.

Boo-hiss, though, to Theatre Royal Stratford East for cancelling Jack And The Beanstalk’s press performance at the last minute for ‘technical reasons’.

Fortunately someone found the magic beans and you can see Nikhil Singh Rai as Jack in this traditional panto until January 6.

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