Emma Corrin’s Orlando is a flare of coltish charisma. Like its star, Neil Bartlett’s giddy adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel radiates gleeful intelligence, rampaging heart and tremendous fun. It couldn’t feel more timely, and it’s glorious.
Woolf wrote Orlando in 1928 as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West and a jeu d’esprit to dispel the shadows of To the Lighthouse. Over four centuries, Orlando sees despotic monarchy become the universal franchise, and somewhere in the 17th century, falls asleep as a man and wakes as a woman. A rompish wild-goose chase through time, place and gender, it takes tenacious hold of our imaginations.
