Mrs Warren’s Profession
Garrick Theatre, London
★★★★

IN Mrs Warren’s Profession at the Garrick theatre, we see yet another star vehicle hit the West End.

Imelda Staunton — fresh from a string of triumphs on stage and screen — once again illuminates London theatreland, this time as Mrs Kitty Warren, a role first publicly performed in 1925.  

Playing her daughter, Vivie — with almost equal star billing — is her own real-life daughter Bessie Carter.

Even more fascinating than a mother/daughter drama in duplicate, though, is the theme of this brave outspoken play, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1893 and instantly banned.

Mrs Warren’s profession, you see, is that of brothel keeper, boasting a string of bawdy houses across Europe. Even in these days of almost total sexual freedom this theme still titillates. In its time, when censorship reigned, it must have been scandalous.

Actually, the play doesn’t dwell on the seedier side. Instead, it comments on the political and economic imperatives that shape thoughts and actions, bringing us characters who, caught in the maelstrom of survival, take opportunities as they can and are every bit as meaningful today as they were before WWI.

Kitty has escaped from poverty by selling sex: to all intents and purposes a business like any other and one in which she, as a woman of her time, can prosper. Her daughter Vivie, a Cambridge graduate in whom all Kitty’s hopes are invested, is similarly ambitious and workaholic, but as a lawyer firmly rooted in respectability.

On discovering the truth about her mother’s job and the shady background of her paternity, she unexpectedly takes it on the chin and asserts herself with all the innate confidence of a 21st century woman in early 20th century garb.

In its political and intellectual clarity, then, the play’s thesis is way ahead of its time and as relevant today as ever. It dispenses with the social expectations of its characters, in true Shavian style, and gives them life outside the stereotypes we have learnt to expect.

Staunton of course effortlessly commands the stage in her fussy, frilly clothes but with an unexpected inner seriousness that gives her character weight. As an added bonus, Carter brings us a still, composed, beautifully nuanced Vivie who centres the play and provides a chemistry between the two women that elevates the drama.

Dominic Cooke’s direction combines with Chloe Lamford’s design to bring us a production of memorable detail. The light and airy rotating stage bursting with exuberant summer flowers defies the shenanigans that persist under the well-to-do social facade.

And the chorus of women in corsets and knickerbockers, who drift on and shift scenery to an almost operatic musical accompaniment, beautifully evoke the brothels that are otherwise dryly conceptual in the play.    

Shaw divides opinion, and some will find this play more discursive than eventful. The pacing is surprisingly leisurely at times for a modern audience. But the characters glow, Robert Glenister, Reuben Joseph, Kevin Doyle and Sid Sagar completing an excellent cast.

A work of intellect… and so contemporary.

Runs until August 16 2025. Box office: 0330 333-4811 thegarricktheatre.co.uk.