Colette Eaton and Naomi Todd (pictured directly below) in Her Aching Heart at the Hope Theatre, London. Pictures: Roy Tan
Her Aching Heart continues at the Hope Theatre, London until 23 December.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
What a glorious revelation and riot of fun this revival of Bryony Lavery’s Her Aching Heart is.
Marvellously directed by Matthew Parker, and meticulously produced as always by Andrea Leoncini’s LWL Entertainment (this time in association with the Hope Theatre), it fully realises the potential of Lavery’s extravagant script, rich in colours and imagery.
It is a wonder this two-hander gem isn’t performed more often, as two modern 21st century women play themselves but also female and male, lesbian and straight characters from a Victorian novel they both happen to be reading at the same time.
What’s not to love? Add corsets, aristocrats, country bumpkins, elegant handwriting, hunting, music, murder, mayhem, sword-fighting, thistle hedges and more – it’s completely bonkers and totally irresistible.
I am confounded as to why this musical play has not been part of every women’s drama festival programme for the past 25 years from when it was first performed at Birmingham Rep.
Her Aching Heart is a play with music rather than a musical per se, but unusually, in a clever musical pastiche which skilfully invokes layers of Victorian society from gothic romance to the English countryside to 19th and 20th century literature, has an evocative new original score composed for Lavery’s original lyrics by composer Ian Brandon.
It is a song that opens the play as Harriet, brilliantly and blazingly played by Colette Eaton, sings heartbreakingly of a ruinous relationship in ‘Uninvited’.
We then meet the quite different character of Molly, effervescently played by Naomi Todd.
As both women immerse themselves in their fantasy novel, Eaton and Todd play an impressive range of characters from the novel with hilarious laugh-out-loud comedic moments, as well as plenty of smouldering passion along the way.
But what Parker has so wonderfully brought out in both women is such heart, joy and immense fun. It truly rips you out of the current doom, gloom, worry and strife, and opens your heart once again to the simple joys of real human connection.
I particularly loved Eaton’s hilarious attempt to dress herself when her maid failed to appear. The actress lifts each scene and character with tremendous focus.
Todd’s maid, when she deigned to serve ‘her lady’, is equally hilarious. Although ‘lowly’ and nowhere near the station of her mistress, it is clear that she is her own woman.
Both women play other characters brilliantly, but it is in the growing realisation of their attraction to each other as played out in the fictional novel that is so compelling, and 
Brandon’s songs capture these moments so beautifully in their duets ‘It’s Spring – Hearts Mend’ and ‘In Love Again’.
Producer Leoncini’s creative team has revived and produced a delight with every attention to detail as always.
Anthony Whiteman’s sensual choreography is simply beautiful, Alex Payne’s fight direction in such a tiny space is inspired, wonderfully dramatic and utterly hilarious.
Rachael Ryan’s red velvet transformation of the space at the Hope Theatre is luscious and fun and Parker’s ingenious direction pulls it all together in a glorious, idiosyncratic, funny and very poignant, romp.
Catherine Françoise
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