Jumbo soars to new heights

A DOLL’S HOUSE, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, to June 1

OLIVIER award-nominated actress Cush Jumbo is here united for the third time with Royal Exchange director Greg Hersov, and again the result is remarkably engaging.

As with their previous collaborations on “Pygmalion” and “As You Like It” the combination of Hersov’s years of thoughtful, clever direction and Jumbo’s vivaciousness and enthusiasm offer a studied portrait of a woman on the edge of panic and the fallout that ensues.

Two years ago the Library Theatre presented this same Bryony Lavery adaptation of the Ibsen classic and I found it rather disjointed and dull, the play seemingly out of tune with a modern audience virtually spoon-fed its diet of emotional trauma from CBBC-age upwards.

But this time it could be a different play entirely, pitting innocence — both in Nora and her condescendingly loving husband Torvald, she silly and submissive, he wearing his sense of honour like a badge — against the hard-won experience of Nora’s friend Kristine Linde and the bitterness of sacked bank worker Krogstad.

In the end the debris clears on a supposedly happy classic family now broken in pieces, while the harder-hit characters get a chance of happiness; even the Helmers’ friend Dr Rank comes out with the result he wanted: certainty about the timing of his impending death.

You could argue that David Sturzaker’s Torvald isn’t quite right, neither patronising not authoritarian enough; but the picture given of a wife reasonably happy to submit to her husband’s will is more acceptable given that this Torvald is a loving and affectionate husband, albeit one with a massively overdone sense of gender divisions.

The supporting cast is generally very watchable; Jack Tarlton is desperate rather than evil as Krogstad, and Kelly Hotten down on her luck rather than vindictive and jealous as Kristine Linde.

Jamie de Courcey is a gloomily endearing character as Dr Rank.

But the evening shines courtesy of Ms Jumbo. Hers is a terrific essay from flighty, light and silly through barely-concealed panic as her secret seems to be on the verge of discovery, to a cold-headed realisation that her only way out is to leave a stifling marriage behind. It’s a terrific study of a woman whose world is about to crash around her.