The Observer

“A crisp one-woman show…
 always engaging”

Sunday 2nd September, 2001

The Jermyn Street Theatre, scooped out of what was once the changing rooms of a restaurant, often makes its audience feel it’s sitting in the same box as the actors, which is particularly fitting for a theatre specializing in plays about actors. Such as Marcy Lafferty’s crisp one-woman show, Vivien Leigh – The Last Press Conference. Lafferty picks her way in Fifties movie-star uniform – big black hat, dark glasses and gloves – through the audience.

She quibbles with the lighting before settling down to trace in more or less (it’s a bit of a problem not knowing which is which) her career from teenage ogler of Laurence Olivier to the wife who played Scarlett O’Hara to the woman who was shot through with ECT and looking for any man who would have her. She proclaims Brando a “bit mumbly.” She is a little elocutionised. But always engaging.

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