A Doll’s House review – sex, drugs and Romola Garai in a heroic Ibsen update

Almeida theatre, LondonAnya Reiss packs the marriage scandal plot with inspired ideas, from convincing talk of Instagram to a look at sexual dynamics in the crosshairs of contemporary capitalism Who would Henrik Ibsen’s Nora be in 21st-century Britain? Would her husband, Torvald still be a bank manager and she his “little squirrel” housewife? Transposing this drama of 19th-century proto-feminism into the present day is a tricky business, partly because the gendered confinements of Nora and Torvald’s “ideal” middle-class marriage are built on thoroughly old-fashioned values: a husband who prides himself as the sole breadwinner, a wife who would spark social scandal if she left her marital home. Adapter Anya Reiss does a heroic job of reimagining this story for modern times, and half pulls it off. In her version, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins, Nora (Romola Garai) is the wife of high-earning London banker, Torvald (Tom Mothersdale), who is also a recovering drug addict. Nora, you sense, is something of a “trophy wife” for him, although far cleverer and more resourceful than he realises. She has secretly bailed the household out of financial ruin and found the money to p