This is Virginia Woolf turned up to a nine. No, seriously: Michael Grandage’s adaptation of her most punk rock novel begins with nine bespectacled, cardiganed Woolfs roaming the stage, reading, writing, thinking. All but two of the cast – including its only man, Richard Cant – play the novelist at various moments throughout the play: a guiding light, but also a nod to the freewheeling fluidity that characterises this vivid celebration of a show.
At its heart is a highly magnetic performance from Emma Corrin, playing the handsome young nobleman who time-travels through centuries and, at the age of 30, wakes up as a woman. It’s hard to remember a bolder entrance than this: Orlando walks on stage in a silky shirt, stretches, and happens to reveal the fact he’s not wearing any pants. He then cheekily breaks the fourth wall, asking, “Shall I compare me to a summer’s day?” Corrin, after appearing in a couple of disappointing films, delivers a joyful and groundbreaking Orlando that feels like a calling card for the stardom that The Crown first promised. They’re magnificent. Whether bowing to Elizabeth I or falling in love on a frozen pond, they’re just as capable of humour as they are pathos, with Orlando by turns intense, charismatic and swoonworthy.
