Francesca Annis is a good 25 years too old to play the heroine of Ibsen's tragedy, but you don't notice it. Her Hedda is a dangerous woman, a menace to others and lethal to herself.
Hedda's husband, Tesman, on the other hand, is played by Robert Bathurst as a little boy who has never grown up. Tesman has only to walk into the same room as Hedda and she starts tapping her fingers in irritation. Not knowing what to do, she turns her whole life into a vicious practical joke. Only, of course, in the end the joke is on her.
Annis gives a seriously good performance but the rest of this production struggles to make an impression. Tom Piper's set is cumbersome and Frank McGuinness's new version doesn't help much, either: too often it merely makes the characters sound highfalutin and absurd.
Bathurst's Tesman should grow in depth to match Annis's Hedda, however, and there is potential in Peter Bowles's Judge Brack.
Until Saturday. Box office: 0181-940 0088
