Woman in Mind at Duke of York’s Theatre review: Sheridan Smith elevates this somewhat dated material

Almost three years after her superlative Shirley Valentine at this theatre, Sheridan Smith shines as another trapped housewife, again elevating somewhat dated material in the process. In Alan Ayckbourn’s 40-year-old play, her Susan, unloved wife of a vicar and mother to an alienated son, undergoes a slow disintegration after a blow to the head, sustained by stepping on a garden rake.

Initially the play has the cosy awkwardness of a sitcom. The clumsy, nervous local doctor (comedian Romesh Ranganathan in a partially successful West End acting debut) bustles on and off, repeatedly tripping over a concrete frog.