Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Review at Soho Place London

Once a decade, a star-studded major revival of Edward Albee’s seismic 1962 marital psychodrama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? storms into the West End. Imelda Staunton and Conleth Hill, Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, and Diana Rigg and David Suchet have all played the acid-tongued, long-married couple Martha and George over the last thirty years. This year the torch is passed to Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup, who are both astonishing as they relentlessly tear strips out of each other and their unassuming guests.

Gillian Anderson(The X-Files, Sex Education, The Fall) draws every shade out of Martha. She is seductive, vulnerable, cruel and deceptive, and by the time the whole facade is stripped away in the third act, utterly devastating. She is more than matched by Billy Crudup(The Morning Show, Almost Famous)who is both hilarious and vicious in a pitch-perfect performance as her seemingly unassuming husband, George, constantly teetering on the edge.

After a faculty party at the university where George works, Martha invites new teacher Nick and his wife Honey over to their place for drinks. It’s with these characters that much of the audience’s sympathy lies with as they are drawn into the older couple’s well-trod games and are forced to confront their own harsh truths. Josh Dylan(Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, The Buccaneers)and Phoebe Horn(The Motive and the Cue) inhabit the younger couple with aplomb. Dylan’s Nick brims with confident bravado, while Horn’s Honey is a fragile, hysterical woman terrified to confront her own reality. As Martha and George strip away Nick and Honey’s illusions, the younger couple are offered a chilling glimpse of what their own marriage might become.

Director Marianne Elliott’s in-the-round production brings the audience suffocatingly close to the action and the slow, almost imperceptible revolve cranks the dial up on Martha and George’s repeated games and ritual humiliations. However, as with any in-the-round set-up, some of the audience will inevitably spend stretches of the play staring at an actor’s back. I noticed this particularly in the stalls, where the intimacy comes with a trade-off: several key monologues are delivered with part of the audience’s view obstructed.

Miriam Buether’s set, with a floating, rotating ring, and James Farncombe’s lighting design really give the sense of being in a boxing ring. The audience is less a fly on the wall and more a complicit fifth character as Albee repeatedly makes us laugh at behaviour that becomes increasingly difficult to laugh at, turning us into willing participants in the evening’s cruelty before steadily pulling the rug out from under us.

Elliott utilises the full, unabridged text, which brings with it an almost three-and-a-half-hour runtime. This may feel daunting to some theatregoers, and some scenes feel like they could benefit from cuts to maintain the momentum, but Albee’s play has a real driving narrative force and never outstays its welcome.

It’s a total theatrical privilege to be in such an intimate venue as @sohoplace, which leaves nowhere for the actors, the characters or the audience to hide. It’s gruelling, brutal and often very funny, but by the end the games are over, the masks are off, and all that’s left is something painfully, devastatingly human.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf plays at Soho Place until 19 December 2026.

Where I Sat

I sat in First Balcony B10 and had a perfect view of the stage. I think choosing seats in the Balcony sections would be advantageous for this production as you’re less hampered by the actor’s backs to the audience as you are in the Stalls. There is a large rake between the first and second rows of the First Balcony, meaning no obstructions from the people in front of you. The seats are comfortable and the legroom was adequate, although I did find myself shuffling in my seat by the third act.

Have You Seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Are you lucky enough to have tickets for this highly anticipated revival? Add your review to SeatPlan and share what you thought. You’ll even earn points towards theatre vouchers if you add a seat photo!