THE LINE OF BEAUTY

Almeida Theatre

★★★½

“Grandage’s direction captures the intoxicating glamour and moral decay of 1980s London”

Should we love people for their beauty, or are people made beautiful through being loved? That is one of the central questions of The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst’s Booker Prize-winning novel, now given its first stage adaptation at the Almeida.

After a seven-year publishing hiatus, Hollinghurst’s 2024 novel Our Evenings reminded readers of his deft treatment of class, race and sexuality in late 20th-century Britain. This adaptation of his 2004 masterpiece, directed by Michael Grandage and adapted by Jack Holden, feels timely again: a period piece that still captures the social anxieties and desires of the present.

The story follows Nick Guest (Jasper Talbot), a young Oxford graduate who moves into the London home of his friend Toby Fedden’s family between 1983 and 1987. The Feddens seem gracious hosts: Gerald (Charles Edwards), a newly minted Tory MP on the up in Thatcher’s Britain, and Rachel (Claudia Harrison), the moneyed, quietly controlling matriarch. Yet beneath their polished hospitality lies an unease—Nick’s sexuality is tolerated rather than embraced, and despite his education and charm, he remains forever an outsider.

The production’s strongest moments come in the first act, contrasting Nick’s initiation into the Feddens’ rarefied world with his tender, complex relationship with Leo (a wonderful Alistair Nwachukwu), his first boyfriend. The class and racial dynamics between them are finely drawn: to the Feddens, Nick is gauche and provincial; to Leo, he represents privilege and aspiration. Their dinner scene at Leo’s family home is the play’s emotional heart, Doreene Blackstock is superb as Leo’s devout Jamaican mother, layering issues of class, race, sexuality and faith with undeniable warmth.

Adam Cork’s sound design brilliantly anchors the production in its era. 80s pop anthems throb through the set, evoking the ecstasy and danger of the decade. Subtler choices are just as effective: a soft echo added to conversations in country estates conjures a chilling sense of distance and grandeur. Christopher Oram’s costumes complete the world—corduroy trousers, baggy shirts, and side ponytails secured with satin scrunchies perfectly capturing the aesthetic of the age.

The play can feel overstuffed. A vast array of characters and subplots race through a decade of shifting politics and private betrayals. Some secondary roles are barely glimpsed, though “Old Pete” (Matt Mella), Leo’s older ex-lover, leaves a lasting impression in just a few minutes on stage.

There are clunky moments: stylised scene transitions, on-the-nose symbolism (a line of cocaine mirroring the “line of beauty”), and some heavy-handed dialogue. And Talbot as Nick feels like a vessel for the audience to view this world rather than a hero: passive, and at times insipidly submissive, forever observing beauty rather than creating it. But Grandage’s direction captures the intoxicating glamour and moral decay of 1980s London, while Arty Froushan’s totally tragic Wani brings a raw vulnerability to the later scenes.

In the end, as the impact of the AIDS pandemic draws closer in and the hypocrisies of wealth and politics are laid bare, Nick’s exile feels inevitable. On the whole this adaptation of The Line of Beauty is a thoughtful, sensuous reflection on love, class and the price of belonging.

THE LINE OF BEAUTY

Almeida Theatre

Reviewed on 30th October 2025

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Johan Persson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ROMANS | ★★★½ | September 2025

A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN | ★★★★★ | June 2025

1536 | ★★★★ | May 2025

RHINOCEROS | ★★★★ | April 2025

OTHERLAND | ★★★★ | February 2025

THE LINE OF BEAUTY

★★★½

“Birch’s experimentation in form is carefully considered and exciting”

Written by Alice Birch, ‘Romans, A Novel’ is, first and foremost, an ambitious play. Spanning about 150 years, it traces the lives of the three improbably slow-aging Roman brothers. It explores themes including masculinity, trauma, individualism, and grief, paying homage to the novel as an enduring literary form all the while. Its approach is of the epic kind, unusual for our day and age, while its exploration of masculinity could not be more topical. Still, ‘Romans’ does not manage to live up to its full potential.

The story is set in three eras, which are matched by the novelistic form roughly dominant at the time depicted. The first half of the play takes place in the first four decades of the 20th century, tracing the lives of the brothers in a somewhat chronological and realist fashion. World War Two features only as a break both in the play and in style – the postwar era and present day which feature after the interval take on a much more fragmentary and satirical tone in homage to modernist and postmodernist literary traditions. Under Sam Pritchard’s direction, the cast jumps effectively between these different styles, while Agnes O’Casey (as the eldest brother’s wife and daughter) and Stuart Thompson (as Edmund, the youngest Roman brother) offer particularly vivid standout performances.

Birch’s experimentation in form is carefully considered and exciting but, beyond the stylistic, her joint engagement with the novel and masculinity feels incomplete. Literary scholars have argued that the eighteenth-century origins of the novel are intertwined with the rise of individualism and a modern understanding of the self. The novel’s fascination with the individual resounds in the selfishness that characterises masculinity in the play, something illustrated by Marlow (Oliver Johnstone) and Jack’s (Kyle Soller) obsession with professional success and disregard for their wives and children. But much of the effectiveness of a novel depends on the strength of its narrative voice and the compelling idiosyncrasies of its characters. This is something Birch’s play lacks. By dealing mostly in fleeting but familiar male types – the cruel boarding school master, the druggy cult guru, the obnoxious billionaire –, ‘Romans’ feels like a slideshow of performed masculinities rather than a more fundamental, psychological exploration of what produces them. The most compelling character is the youngest Roman brother, Edmund (Stuart Thompson), who fails to live up to expectations of manliness, but his story is given frustratingly little time on stage. As such, Birch fails to fully convey an original take on her subject matter in this two-and-a-half-hour whirlwind of a story.

Despite this, it’s a compelling watch: the staging is gorgeous, with Merle Hensel’s stunning revolving platform being used to great effect in combination with movement director Hannes Langlof’s careful choreography. Lee Curran’s moody lighting provides an especially atmospheric quality to the first half of the play and, together with Benjamin Grant’s sound design, greatly aids the depiction of a tragic suicide in the first act.

Ambitious and sprawling, Alice Birch’s play is a fascinating experiment in form, though perhaps this is also its weak point. While its engagement with masculinity ultimately feels more descriptive than analytical, ‘Romans’ is an exciting watch.

Tag Archives: Almeida Theatre

THE LINE OF BEAUTY

★★★½

Almeida Theatre

THE LINE OF BEAUTY

Almeida Theatre

★★★½

“Grandage’s direction captures the intoxicating glamour and moral decay of 1980s London”