Filumena

Financial Times“Attenborough could, however, inject more pace at several points...” Spiro’s Filumena may look drawn and haggard, but she crackles with electricity. Director Michael Attenborough has Clive Wood’s Domenico establish the strain of Neapolitan machismo from the very start...

Time Out“An entertaining, almost fairytale story...” As excellent as Wood is, the production is held together by a spirited performance from Spiro as the illiterate Filumena, who is so much more than the cliché of the tart with the heart...

The Telegraph“Blandly benign...” Crickets chirp, birds sing and you decide you must book a holiday in Italy, pronto. Not everything else in Michael Attenborough’s production matches its ravishing appearance though...

The Independent“Feels like a startling, radical shift towards feminist docudrama...” Michael Attenborough's production is picturesque – unfolding in the courtyard of Wood's villa, complete with orange tree – but the humour often seems feebly meandering...

The Arts Desk“A loving and empathic approach to decidedly intractable material...” A plot twist that a half-century later would be revisited (and inverted) in Mamma Mia!, which, come to think of it, might be a good alternative title for this play...

this is london“A real pleasure...” A colloquial new version by Tanya Ronder that is lively, if not especially Latin in flavour. What must have seemed daring in the Forties feels a bit slight, yet a wealth of emotion is wrung from the script in Michael Attenborough's production...

The Observer“What a curious piece this is...” The rest of the cast, a succession of archetypes, hang around as if waiting for more convincing employment. "That really was very special," someone says at one point. If only....

Guardian“A good evening...” There could be a slightly harder edge, and certainly a stronger period sense, to a play that is a politicised fairytale...

The Stage“At times deeply affecting...” What is odd are the leaps of register the audience has to go with - from high tragedy to a kind of provincial morality fable laced with some weak jokes and even weaker questions...

Whatsonstage.com“It's jolly good, but it’s curiously inauthentic, too...” Sheila Reid and Geoffrey Freshwater twitter and harrumph nicely on the perimeter as domestic servants. But it’s a slight and over-cosy evening and not nearly as charming as you’d like...