A Doll’s House at the Almeida: Thrilling, steamy and ambitious
A Doll’s House | Almeida | ★★★★☆
As Oscar Wilde probably never said, “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” I can’t think of a pithier summary of this propulsive, steamy, ambitious retelling of Ibsen’s most enduring play, A Doll’s House.
In this thoroughly modern version by Anya Reiss, Nora and Torvald have just moved into the kind of sprawling converted townhouse that could be on the same Islington street as the Almeida theatre, complete with a vast, pristine white basement in which the action takes place.
Torvald is still a banker but now he’s a fintech bro who’s just sold his upstart asset management firm, ending his family’s financial woes, assuming the due diligence people don’t find anything suspicious (think of this as ‘Chekhov’s Auditor’). Said woes, it turns out, stem from his cocaine addiction and subsequent stint in a Paracelsus-esque rehab clinic.
It turns out Nora “borrowed” the money to pay for it all from a client’s account without asking for permission – or, indeed, informing her husband – and the entire middle class house of cards looks set to topple at any moment. Queue a series of psychosexual interactions between Nora and her male acquaintances as she desperately attempts to hit the brakes on this slow-motion car crash.
It unfolds in thrilling fashion, with the taut pacing and anxiety-dream energy of an episode of Succession. The more boxed in Nora becomes, the more she turns to sex as a potential solution. If she flirts hard enough with the terminally ill Petter, might he bequeath her some dosh? And if she agrees to lap-dance for her husband in a chintzy, Amazon-bought nurse outfit, might it buy her time to figure this whole situation out?
In Ibsen’s play, Nora’s lack of agency is clear: when it was first staged in Copenhagen in 1879, it was illegal for women to manage their own financial affairs. The 2026 version of Nora faces less tangible obstacles: as a wife it is assumed she will bend her life to fit the shape of her husband’s. When he’s destitute, it’s up to her to bail him out and when he’s back on top, her role switches to one of supportive domesticity.
Romola Garai is magnetic as Nora in A Doll’s House
It’s excellently acted throughout, especially Romola Garai, who is magnetic as Nora, radiating desperation and a chaotic sexuality. Tom Mothersdale is oily and nerdy in equal measure as Torvald, playing him not as a bad man but a weak one, at once reliant on and dismissive of Nora.
The play’s verisimilitude breaks down a little in the relationships between the central couple and the supporting characters. The appearance and subsequent adoption of barely-recognised old friend Kristine feels underwritten and Nora’s outrageous flirting with Petter borders on the absurd (although I do appreciate a scene in which she seems to consider instigating a threesome between her husband and his best mate as a way to delay the inevitable).
It’s also brilliantly directed, the action punctuated by throbbing music and, at one point, a dance routine to Tiktok hit Man in Finance. I left slightly torn, wondering if Garai slut-dropping in a dress so short you can see her knickers was playing a little too much to the male gaze, and thinking that that’s exactly what I was supposed to feel.
• A Doll’s House is on at the Almeida until 23 May – book here