Review: Mrs Dalloway, London Library

Some productions breathe fresh life into a classic text; a rare few make you feel like you’re experiencing it for the first time. This immersive retelling of Mrs Dalloway, staged to mark 100 years since Virginia Woolf’s novel was first published, falls squarely in the latter category.

Being performed in the middle of June, the very time in which Woolf’s novel takes place, Mrs Dalloway unfolds within the elegant, wood-panelled confines of the London Library in Mayfair. Though not quite Clarissa Dalloway’s Westminster, the setting is close enough to conjure her world, and the building itself becomes a character in the piece. Audience members are given headsets and encouraged to roam freely as actors inhabit the space, their physical presence seamlessly interwoven with internal monologues, memories, and anxieties delivered through rich, layered audio.

The effect is immediate and powerful. Three actors portray Mrs Dalloway, not as distinct characters but as simultaneous aspects of one woman’s mind and experience. This expressive directorial choice allows her inner life to ripple across the space with clarity and poignancy. The action soon spills out of the library and into the surrounding streets of Mayfair, with the audience following Clarissa as she moves through her day: buying flowers, bumping into friends and acquaintances, reflecting on choices made and paths not taken.

Woolf’s modernist stream of consciousness is honoured and elevated here. The audio narration, delivered with emotional precision, draws us into Clarissa’s private world, while real-world encounters add texture and immediacy. Along the way, we encounter other key figures from the novel, including Peter Walsh and the haunting figure of Septimus, whose suffering and fate ripple through Clarissa’s consciousness as the story reaches its close.

The journey culminates in an upstairs salon of the library, transformed into the party the whole narrative has been building towards. Here, headsets are relinquished and the audience become guests. It’s a triumphant shift in tone and texture: actors mingle effortlessly among us, their performances entirely natural, offering charm, awkwardness, flirtation, and reflection. The immersive sound continues, now through subtle surround speakers, preserving the dreamlike intimacy of the production’s earlier scenes. A few final moments bring closure with poetic restraint, and we are left to drift away into the evening air, changed by what we’ve witnessed.

Every aspect of this production is exemplary. The adaptation is loving and clear-sighted, the performances emotionally tuned and graceful. Direction is fluid and inventive, and the sound design is nothing short of revelatory.

I studied Mrs Dalloway at A-level and have always held it close to my heart. To revisit it like this, not just reimagined but reanimated, felt like a gift. It’s not often that a piece of theatre enhances its literary source material but this one does with rare, breathtaking elegance.

I arrived at the theatre feeling out of sorts. I left with a spring in my step, much like Clarissa herself, seeing the beauty in the city as dusk settled. This is a glorious and affecting tribute to Woolf’s genius and a quietly dazzling piece of theatre in its own right. The word immersive simply does not do this production justice.

Adapted and directed by: Helen Tennison
Photography by: Jane Hobson
Presented by Creation Theatre in partnership with The London Library and The Royal Society of Literature

Mrs Dalloway has completed its run at The London Library and will soon run again in Oxford between 19 and 22 June 2025. Tickets and information are available here.