After Miss Julie

Park Theatre

Playing until 28th February 2026

Book tickets

Photo credit: Teddy Cavendish

{PR Gifted ticket}

Engaged in a night of heated flirtations, Julie (Liz Francis), daughter of a labour MP engages in a sexual relationship with her father’s chauffeur, John (Tom Varey), despite the fact that she is well aware that he is already in a committed relationship with Christine (Charlene Boyd), a maid in the house.

Torn between the two women, Patrick Marber’s script and Dadiow Lin’s direction convey the obvious differences in how John responds to the two people that dance around him. On one hand a committed and stable relationship with Christine that is slow and stale, and on the other hand, sexual tension with Julie. The mundaneness and slow-paced chores performed by Christine show a life that is dull and routine, nothing out of the ordinary, making the contrast to Julie all the more obvious. The second Julie appears; the atmosphere of the room becomes vibrant, erratic and unpredictable. From a scene setting perspective, the creatives of the show have done a commendable job.

During the exchange between Julie and John, there is this constant toing and froing between the two, each playing their card to entice and subjugate each other, which worked well leading up to their one-night stand. However, this quickly falls apart after and fails to live up to production’s early promise.

When Julie and John look past the night of passion and the mirage that conceals their differences, cracks form and the two begin to engage in what I could only describe as a whiplash of sudden changes in their characters. Just as the two begin to talk about their dream of running away and starting a new life in New York, the reality gets hold of them as they attempt to dominate each other through class differences and trickery. Both showing their true colours as they attempt to manipulate the other. While a noteworthy concept, its execution in its current format is problematic.

The characters all flip amongst the various sides of themselves at a moment’s notice, and there is simply not enough time for any of them to flesh out the dominant side of themselves before they switch again. This takes place constantly throughout, with these fleeting expressions of an enormous range of emotions preventing the audience to fully hold on to any particular aspect of any of the characters. This constant switching also creates confusion over the characters’ actions and it becomes increasingly unclear whether they intend to create a fairy tale ending and run away, live in the moment and with the consequences, or attempt to sabotage each other. Indeed, what is their intended end game?

Though I applaud the attempt to create a story with dubious moral ambiguity, the way in which it is executed has proven to be a challenge. Although the struggle amongst people from different social classes is made abundantly clear, the narrative becomes increasingly lost in a deadlock amongst classism, power struggle, desire and reality.  

Creatives

Writer: Patrick Marber

Director: Dadiow Lin

Producer: Kit Bromovsky

Set and Costume Designer: Eleanour Wintour

Fight and Intimacy Director: Yarit Dor

Composer and Sound Designer: Ed Lewis

Lighting Designer: Jack Hathaway