Bond girl Maryam d’Abo is ‘compelling’ in new London play
Spanish Oranges review and star rating: ★★★★
“Those legs of yours,” purrs Jay Villers’ Ivo to his wife Fiona in the new play Spanish Oranges. For the actor Maryam d’Abo, who played opposite Timothy Dalton’s Bond in The Living Daylights, it’s another decade, another man with emotional issues as she takes on her first stage role in 26 years. Only this time her partner is way worse than 007.
Taking this play on with her longtime collaborator and friend, the director Myriam Cyr, d’Abo said of her return to the stage in an interview with Morning Wire that Spanish Oranges is “very relevant to many relationships.” Of what attracted her to the role of Fiona, she said “she’s much brighter than I am. That was a challenge.”
While d’Abo is much more than Bond, having worked in theatre, film and television ever since, it is also worth noting that it is rare to see a former Bond girl on stage. The women of d’Abo’s generation (the 1980s and earlier) haven’t tended to commit to grassroots work like this, making this production feel rare. As for her Fiona, d’Abo is compelling as the tender, exhausted author, who has funnelled much of her anxiety and stress of a life living with Ivo into her much-hyped book, which – no surprises here – narratively reflects her personal dreams of escaping her toxic marriage.
Spanish Oranges: Bond girl Maryam d’Abo is gripping in new play
In Alba Arikha’s MeToo play, Villiers plays husband Ivo as well as a journalist visiting their family home to interview Fiona about her book. Equally, Villiers is an incredible talent. The piece features a clever device which helps him inhabit both characters. As well as an impressive physical feat, it is a neat way of implying how interchangeably terrible these two men are (the journalist for platforming traumatic topics to a vulnerable woman, and Ivo for abuse). Villiers morphs between them, representing some terrible ball of anger. All the while, Fiona cowers in the corner.
Director Myriam Cyr’s sleek, refined show goes by in a flash, thanks to Arikha’s relevant, ruminative writing. If the topic of cancel culture feels slightly dated and well covered elsewhere, Arikha’s ability to look back at it through the lens of someone already cancelled, rather than facing cancellation, brings freshness. There is also nuance in the badness: Ivo has clearly made very wrong moves but Villiers’ careful portrayal brings out his humanity even if beyond all his justifications he’s still venomous as hell.
At its heart there is very good chemistry between d’Abo and Villiers. What really comes across is the feeling of exhaustion: inter-marital, personal, emotional, physical. The revelations about Ivo in the final moments are an overshare that dilutes the potency somewhat, but otherwise it’s all good fun at The Playground Theatre near Notting Hill, a lovely fringe space I’d never heard of but would like to visit again.
Spanish Oranges plays until 7 March; theplaygroundtheatre.org.uk