First staged in 1879 amid consternation, bowdlerisation and acclaim, Henrik Ibsen’s great play of female emancipation was long ago sealed in the aspic of “classic”. Thereafter A Doll’s House has been variously approached as sumptuous costume drama or ripped to shreds in a quest to modernise, the latter often having more to do with the ego of an auteur than any service to the play or its audience. Joanna Murray-Smith’s adaptation is not like that. Rather, she has streamlined an otherwise somewhat stultifying script, paring away excessive 19th-century verbiage and revealing a narrative which is fresh and very much of the 21st century. Fans of Ibsen’s great play are unlikely to be aggrieved, while anyone approaching it on dragging feet is likely to be beguiled as it unfolds.

Chantelle Jamieson and James Lugton, A Doll’s House, Ensemble Theatre, 2022. Photo © Prudence Upton

Nora (Chantelle Jamieson) is the younger wife of Torvald (James Lugton), a lugubrious gent we would recognise as a workaholic whose home office is his refuge. It’s Christmas and Nora has been shopping. She returns laden with many bags and much exuberance. Torvald is patronisingly...