Owen Teale and Elizabeth Dulau in Bird Grove [Johan Persson]

ALEXI Kaye Campbell’s latest play, Bird Grove, covers a short period in the life of George Eliot, before she changed her name and became a celebrated writer.

Set in 1841, Mary Ann Evans (Elizabeth Dulau, superb) lives with her father, Robert (Owen Teale), in Bird Grove House just outside Coventry. She’s of marriable age and, as her brother Isaac (Jolyon Coy) claims, their father moved there to find her a suitable match through the church.

Isaac brings around the ghastly Horace Garfield (Jonnie Broadbent), their bumbling, rotund neighbour whose inheritance depends on finding a wife. But Mary Ann has other ideas.

Horace visits while she is entertaining her liberally minded friends Charles (Tom Espiner) and Cara (Rebecca Scroggs) Bray, and is being hypnotised by their acquaintance, the famous French mesmerist Charles Lafontaine (James Staddon).

Mary Ann and her widowed father are close: she is effectively his housekeeper, while he encourages her blossoming intellect and pursuit of knowledge. But their affection is tested when she tells him she is no longer prepared to go to church with him – an act that will have serious repercussions on their relationship.

Campbell has clearly done his research, and this is a detailed and nuanced portrait of a highly intelligent woman struggling to find her voice within the constraints of societal norms.

Anna Ledwich’s assured production unfolds on Sarah Beaton’s revolving stage. The elegance of the set is enhanced by Matt Haskins’s evocative lighting, with snow falling behind, and then through, a huge window to startling effect.

Apart from a misplaced denouement, warmly recommended.

Until March 21
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