Carey Mulligan in Girls and Boys. Photos: Marc Brenner

DENNIS Kelly’s new play is a 90-minute monologue, which may sound a tall order for both audience and actor but offers an engrossing evening and a superb performance.

Carey Mulligan (currently on TV as cop Kip in Collateral) chats directly with the audience about her life and husband. She met him in an easyJet queue and at first disliked him: until he put a couple of uppity models in their place. They are both from very ordinary backgrounds (and she’s got the accent exactly) but bold ingenuity has got her into documentary movies and he built a business in antique wardrobes. It is very funny the way she tells it standing in front of a blank front cloth with perfect timing that seems completely natural. It sounds like success with good sex in a successful marriage.

The chat is periodically interrupted by episodes in which we see her with her children, at home or out shopping, miming the presence of little Danny and his slightly elder sister Leanne. Designer Es Devlin presents open-plan sitting room or street scene entirely pale blue, devoid of other colour except for a few differing objects. Is this the past or the imagination?

Writer, director (Lyndsey Turner), designer and actor truly deliver. The content touches on the precarious balance between personal and professional life, child-rearing, male violence (even Danny delights in destruction while Leanne likes to make things). Experiences shared evoke warm recognition then get darker.

It is only one side of the story for, as she tells us: “That’s what happens when you have just one person talking,” but it will make you think about your own relationship and Kelly’s script makes possible Mulligan’s finely judged performance.

UNTIL 17 MARCH
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