Pleasance Dome
Four stars
Take three women. This is what the late Arnold Wesker did back in 1981 when he pieced together a quartet of monologues spoken by a trio of independent women of very different stripes and gave voice to their stories.
Forty-five years ago actress Nichola McAuliffe took Wesker’s compendium of monologues to London’s West End, morphing into all three characters. Now she revisits Wesker’s indomitable trio for an anniversary production that updates things for a very different twenty-first century in this new production that transfers to London’s Finborough Theatre following its Edinburgh dates.
The changes are most notable with Anna, the working class student about to go on a date, and who these days carries a TK Maxx bag, shops from Amazon and conducts her insecure affairs via social media on her mobile.
Next up are two very different sides of Annabelle Wharton, initially a nicely spoken middle class novelist with 1970s bohemian stylings who is being asked the same old questions by journalists. By the time of her second interrogation, she seems to have reinvented herself as a gym bunny chick lit queen with attitude aplenty who isn’t taking any nonsense.
Finally we meet Annie Wobbler herself, a woman of a certain age who is what used to be called a bag lady, and has a story to tell of her time cleaning for assorted London addresses.
While all three characters have the same initials as their author, Annie is by far the most interesting. This is possibly due to her being drawn from the real life Annie Wobbler who cleaned for Wesker’s parents.
All of Wesker’s creations nevertheless allow McAuliffe free rein to hit the dressing up box and bring decades of wisdom and experience to each in this long overdue revival of a neglected writer whose monologues for women remain some of the best of their kind. As McAuliffe brings them to life once more, Annie Wobbler and co are well worth revisiting.
Until Aug 31, 1pm.
The Herald, August 12, 2026
ends
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