16 September 2026

Photos by RKM

Review by Alan Connor

A first class production. National Theatre Live takes a London staging, films it properly, clean sound, someone who knows where to point the lens and sends it out to cinemas. Instead of flying to the South Bank in London, you head to Cremorne. The Orpheum is a lovely place for it: all that art deco, the signed photos along the carpeted corridor that me and my date try to identify on the walk to the screen, popcorn in one hand and a small plastic cup of vin rouge in the other. The building always looks the part, even if you don’t.

The play is Molière, in a new version by Martin Crimp – the man who gave us that Cyrano de Bergerac — directed by Indhu Rubasingham. Sandra Oh takes the title role, here reimagined as Alice, a brilliant novelist with no patience for the polite lies everyone else has agreed to tell. You’re no longer watching a man complain that the world won’t behave. You’re watching a woman who won’t flatter, won’t soften, won’t play the game – and everyone around her treats that as a character flaw. The harder she pushes, the harder they push back. It works.

I should declare an interest. I’ve had a soft spot for Sandra Oh since Sideways, still one of my favourite films, she’s funny and slightly dangerous in the same breath. Sharp, warm, quick. Funny the way people are funny when they’re not reaching for it. She’s got Crimp’s language to wrestle with and never once sounds like she’s reciting; every line lands like it’s just occurred to her. Worth the ticket to see her own the stage.

Paul Chahidi is the other actor worth your attention. He plays John — Alice’s mate and the only reasonable person in the building — and he quietly holds the whole thing together. Decent, exasperated, visibly done with everybody. Tom Mison is the younger love interest and does the job. The rest are fine.

The Misanthrope – Hayden Orpheum (Photo: RKM)

Theatre works because a few hundred strangers sit in the dark together, you hear every footstep and something might go wrong. Film it, project it, and some of the tension quietly leaves the room. What you’re left with is a very good record of a night out rather than the night out itself. It’s why I’ve never much loved watching Hamilton on the couch, or watching Glastonbury festival happen to other people from another continent. Sometimes I want to hear and see what the camera doesn’t catch.

Four stars out of five, for reasons that have far more to do with the screen than the stage. Plenty of people around me were having a lovely time. They weren’t wrong.

If you’re a Sandra Oh fan, if you want to see what Crimp does to Molière or if a night at the Orpheum or another fabulous independent cinema is reason enough on its own – go. You’ll see a razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud roast of how we treat each other if nothing else. It is a very good watch.