If it is a failure, it is a heroic one, performing the rare feat of leaving this critic impressed, exasperated but temporarily speechless." The imminent collapse of feudal Britain is made relevant through Elizabeth, an unmarried woman, enduring patriarchy’s ever-encroaching advances, including the horror of her brother’s incestuous desires, as she attempts to keep control of the estate. This odd treatment of early English Civil War (say 1642) landed gentry often hits the mark but also misfires like the musket wielded by a terrifying mute Roundhead who enters the manor house at the close of an arduous evening. But in some of the most candid dismantling of the fourth wall that I can remember, Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea as the Devil (sporting a wonderful pair of miniature horns and reading the Evening Standard) has told us in a framing device that the piece will be a long haul. He adds that we can at least look forward to sex scenes and an execution. Lulu Raczka’s Almeida debut manages to subvert so many things that it’s difficult to know where to start with a straightforward description of it. "

Alison Oliver to star in ‘Women, Beware the Devil’ at the

I’d love to add this work to that corpus of achievement but I found myself ultimately more bothered and bewildered than bewitched by a play which starts with tremendous dazzle but slowly goes up in smoke. Rupert Goold ( Dear England, Tammy Faye, Patriots) directs this new play by Sunday Times Playwriting Award-winner Lulu Raczka ( Antigone, Nothing). Raczka has taken inspiration from Jacobean drama, which mirrored the political tumult in 17th-century England with plays that were fascinated by bloodshed, ambition, and the nature of evil. This jaundiced view of human nature is a refreshing antidote to a modern theatre landscape that often writes nice, likeable women (just look at recent female-centric shows like suffragette musical Sylvia, currently on at the Old Vic). “I’m not interested in heroes,” she says. “And I think it’s great when women are really horrible in a specifically female way.”Miriam Buether’s set is elegant and functional, a bare, panelled room in which appealingly laden dining tables are wheeled in from the wings and the much-maligned marital bed rises from the floor. Lighting and costume create some evocative moments, some with gorgeous intimations of Vermeer. Goold maintains a heady pace and a hearty wink throughout. On Thu 16 Mar we will be holding a variety of free workshops and events for those aged 25 and under, including a free performance of Women, Beware the Devil. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Please review our Lulu Raczka, writer of Women, Beware the Devil, will lead a practical playwriting workshop with ideas, exercises, and approaches to developing your own craft as a writer. Lulu will also share insights into the process of writing Women, Beware the Devil, and its journey to the stage.

Women, Beware the Devil | Almeida Theatre, London

Joining Goold in the creative team are set design by Miriam Buether, costume design by Evie Gurney, lighting design by Tim Lutkin, sound design and music composition by Adam Cork, and casting by Amy Ball. Opinion | Don't sneer at celebrities on the West End. They're saving theatre 27 October, 2023 Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage's new drama Clyde's fails to convince 25 October, 2023 Philip Guston at the Tate Modern is an outstanding exhibition of crisis, violence and injustice 21 October, 2023 If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. If Arthur Miller (often irked when the humour in his plays was overlooked) had decided to use witchcraft merely as the basis for a comedy with elements of magical realism, he might have written something like this beguiling new play. But Miller would have injected more rigour and discipline.ENJOY the play – it’s pretty long .” With these words, the Devil (charmingly played by Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea) ends his prologue and opens the action on Women, Beware the Devil , a new play by Lulu Raczka at the Almeida Theatre. Yet, in spite of it all, there is something exhilarating about its disruptions, which seem deliberate. The devil (Nathan Armarkwei-Laryea) tells us at the start that this play is “pretty long but don’t worry it’s enjoyable”. He’s not all wrong. No surprise then to find him drawn to playwright Lulu Raczka’s tale of necromancy in 1640s England framed by present day musings on all that is devilish. You want a entertaining play that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, part satire, part comedy of manners, part supernatural thriller