The Years at the Harold Pinter Theatre: an 'unmissable' evening

A succession of Greek tragedies have been staged in London lately, said Sarah Crompton on WhatsOnStage. But "the play that comes closest to Greek theatre's belief in a communal rite of shared experience is not 'Oedipus' or 'Elektra'", but this adaptation of "The Years", the French Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux's novelistic memoir from 2008.

The Norwegian director Eline Arbo's production was first seen at the Almeida last summer, and has now transferred to the West End with its "alchemical magic" intact. Spanning the years 1941 to 2006, "The Years" is a memory play that builds "layer upon layer of allusive" feeling to create an "entire portrait of a world". It's an "emotional, coruscating experience"; a meditation on the "failure of liberation truly to liberate", and on the "ongoing hopefulness of love". It's profoundly moving yet also "incredibly funny".

In this sometimes shocking production, five exceptional actresses (Anjli Mohindra, Harmony Rose-Bremner, Romola Garai, Gina McKee and Deborah Findlay) play the main character at different stages, from childhood to old age, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. One scene, in which Garai as Annie graphically describes a backstreet abortion, has caused audience members to faint. It's an extraordinary sequence, which on its own makes the evening "unmissable". Yet the drama from then on becomes even more potent, weaving "intimate minutiae" and the grand sweep of social history into "one spellbinding, ruminative whole".

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This is unquestionably an "acting masterclass", said Clive Davis in The Times. The storyline, though, is thin and punctuated by "predictable landmarks"; the dawn of rock'n'roll, the 1968 student unrest, and so on. Still, there's plenty of humour to leaven the "bien pensant" social commentary.

Ultimately, "The Years" "quietly assures its audience that the history of the 20th century is the history of women's liberation", said Georgia Luckhurst in The Stage. It is a "joy to see such emphatically feminist theatre on the West End stage".

Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1. Until 19 April