'Tis Pity She's a Whore – reviews of 'glittering' revival

What you need to know

A revival of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore has opened at the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London. Michael Longhurst directs Ford's 17th century tragedy in the Globe’s candlelit new Jacobean-style theatre space.

The play tells the story of Annabella, a much-courted beauty from Parma, who is stunned when her brother Giovanni confesses his infatuation with her and begs to be killed. Instead, Annabella takes him as a lover, but their incestuous love is condemned by a hostile world.

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Fiona Button and Max Bennett appear as the star-crossed sibling lovers Annabella and Giovanni. Runs until 7 December.

What the critics like

John Ford’s 400 year-old tragedy still has the power to shock and "this production leaves few holds barred", using the candlelit intimacy of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse to great effect, says Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. There’s a lot of indecent fun here, but the laughs fizzle out as this glittering dark tragedy spirals downwards.

"Phwoar, what a scorcher!" says Tim Walker in the Daily Telegraph. If ever a play was made for the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse it has to be Ford’s dark and dangerous masterpiece, and Longhurst's coup de theatre is to make the evil so seductive.

"John Ford’s unsettling Renaissance incest drama is lent a subtle urgency by fine acting and direction," says Michael Billington in The Guardian. It’s a textually rigorous and physically exciting study of the irresistible force of rampant passion.

What they don’t like

In the first half, "the semi-comic subplots can swamp the story", and while the horror and humour are mixed adroitly, the heartbreak is harder to access, says Dominic Maxwell in The Times. "Yet I have never seen the play done better."