Review: Hedda (Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath)

Review by Seth Wilby

⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s 2025, and Ibsen seems to be all the rage. Both the Master Builder and Ghosts were given modern reimaginings in London earlier this year, and the autumn will see The Lady From the Sea revived at the Bridge Theatre. However, it is Bath’s 126-seater Ustinov Studio that offers what may be the most intriguing take of the year, with Lily Allen starring as Hedda Gabler in what promised to be “a Hedda absolutely for now” by Matthew Dunster. But, would this reimagining be a fatal error or something beautiful?

Hedda, in both the original play and this fresh take, is a bored newlywed, who moves in her own mysteriously manipulative ways yet seems drawn into action by an attraction towards, and from, the men around her, forcing her to meet the grisly end everyone knows is coming from the play’s very first beats. As both director and writer, Matthew Dunster has chosen to strip the piece of its 1800s setting, and modernise several elements that accompany this, yet, as a character, the titular Hedda remains almost untouched, displaying the same traits of desire, jealousy and vanity.

This is, in many ways, more of a rewriting than a reimagining. Scenes flow in exactly the same way, and the changes to the story are minimal. A manuscript becomes a laptop, a hat becomes some shoes, and so on. Beyond the obvious relocation to the modern day, any reimagination seems to have achieved little in updating the plot’s relevance to today’s audience, where there is certainly still a lot that could be said on patriarchy and coercion. That said, this is still a play in good shape. Dunster has successfully directed a naturalistic piece that places the narrative into something that feels much more modern than anyone could imagine a 135-year-old piece could achieve. It feels accessible to audiences of today, and, although the more dramatic moments seem either spoon-fed or sudden, it’s a remarkably easy watch (the extent to which this should be the lasting feeling after Hedda Gabler is debatable, though).

Dunster's direction serves the purpose well, but stretches little beyond that, with no particularly striking moments or powerful imagery. Scene transitions take too long, and the use of a record player distracts from dialogue in important moments. There is definitely a lot more scope in this production for more thought-provoking choices, and more of a gradual incline towards the play's end would be appreciated. In fact, Hedda’s conclusion leaves us shocked, not from narrative connection but from how it feels as if it comes from almost nowhere. The decision to place this climactic moment off stage dulls the potential emotional impact too. The play ends focused solely on a dead Hedda in the arms of Danni the Nanny (played with heart by Najla Andrade) in a confusing choice that feels like it ought to hold much greater significance than it does. And it is at this moment that you realise that, regardless of how much emotion seems to have been poured into the final scenes by the cast (Tom Austen’s Jasper is particularly heartbreaking in his final moments), you just haven't connected as much as you could to a story like this. Instead, the play seems happy to just let the audience watch the action play out, rather than feel emotionally attached to it.

In his writing, Dunster does manage to achieve what feels like natural conversation, yet, particularly in early scenes, characters stop and restart sentences so sporadically and constantly bounce between thoughts that it feels more like a cast struggling with their lines than the genuine human interaction intended. There is more success in the script’s modernisation though, with dialogue (although maybe not the motives behind it) easy to follow and lines about flat whites and Frome getting big reactions from the audience. Dunster’s words, though, lack the intensity of Ibsen’s, and never quite reach the poetic quality they seem to be striving for. It is in the moments where Ibsen’s text is directly used (such as in Hedda’s request for Jasper’s suicide to be ‘beautiful’) that the script is most powerful, yet this does leave a lack of complete congruency throughout. You can’t help but feel that Dunster’s vision could be better served if Ibsen’s text was maintained more closely and presented as a modernised revival, or if Dunster could have written an original play without the constraints given by Ibsen’s format.

Perhaps one of the key reasons that audiences shouldn’t struggle to understand this reimagining is in Dunster’s updating of the characters, managing to depict regular people who the audience have crossed paths with many times in their lives. Brack (played brashly by the domineering presence of Brendan Coyle) is no longer a judge but a politician in one of my favourite choices of this version, making the decline of his charismatic façade into manipulative blackmail a fascinating statement on power politics. That said, Dunster fails to create the Machiavellian malevolence necessary in the final scenes to paint Brack as the villain he must be to push Hedda to her death. The other stand-out performance comes from Ciarán Owens as George, portrayed much kinder than in previous productions and inducing some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Owens’ depiction feels genuine, and the audience relate to George almost instantly, yet this production doesn’t identify any main motivators behind George and Hedda’s marriage, and their relationship is left confusing as a result. Occasionally, George erratically switches into moments of full-blown rage, which, although not unprovoked, are too sudden to feel real. 

A lot of the characterisation is down not to the writing, but to Anna Fleischle’s costume design. George wears a Rick and Morty t-shirt, Hedda a set of silk blue pyjamas and Taya (the shy and innocent friend, played with vulnerability by Julia Chan) a woolen cardigan. Despite seeming simple, these are costuming choices which allow the audience to instantly link these characters to who they probably are as people, and how we should feel about them as a result. The simplistic living room set (also by Fleischle) was genuinely beautiful to look at, with an elegant slickness lit up wonderfully by Lucy Carter’s atmospheric design. However, the choice to use two automatically swinging doors was a confusing one. Not only did this instantly suck you out of reality and distract you from the action, it removes any possible suspense when you know exactly when a character is going to enter or leave a scene five seconds before it happens.

As the eponymous egotist, Lily Allen gives a compelling and passionate performance, but she takes too long to warm up to this. By the final scenes, she provides an assured and emotive portrayal, which genuinely generates sympathy for a character who is otherwise a difficult protagonist. Allen just misses the magnetism of Heddas from the past, skirting slightly below a fully compelling performance. This production places Hedda as a typical narcissist, which makes her lack the nuances necessary to understand her choices. Detrimentally, Allen also spends the early scenes playing third fiddle amongst busy scenes, and never fully occupies the audience’s headspace. Like many other characters in this version, Hedda lacks the steady arc required for the character to make sense, and Allen’s portrayal across the two acts feels like two separate people, rather than someone in decline. This is not helped by changes from Ibsen’s text, notably that the critical guns are now owned by Hedda’s husband as opposed to her father, which makes their use feel more like a newer choice than certain legacy. Considering the loss of the Gabler from the title, it is a shame that Hedda doesn’t feel more fleshed out and self-motivated. 

To bring something like Hedda Gabler back to the stage in such a new form, there has to be something that the director is trying to achieve. Unfortunately, Dunster’s adaptation makes no commentary and brings nothing new to Ibsen’s work. If its only aim was to modernise this classic, then it has succeeded. However, as a reinterpretation, it achieves nothing more and, even thinking of it as an original play, it is left somewhat erratic.

Hedda plays in the Ustinov Studio, at Theatre Royal Bath until August 23rd

For tickets and information visit https://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/events/hedda/

Photos by Manuel Harlan