In a year that has seen the inauguration of Donald Trump and a rise in right-wing rhetoric, it seems more important than ever to keep women’s narratives at the forefront of our consciences. Assembled by actor and writer Ella Duffy, and director Robbie Taylor Hunt, Wife is a neatly-crafted theatrical adaptation of a series of poems from The World’s Wife by poet laureate (and Ella’s mother) Carol Ann Duffy.

From The Kray Sisters to Michelle Obama and Queen Herod, Duffy plays a range of women extracted from historically or culturally significant places of fact and fiction. Each the protagonist of their own vignette, they are either oppressed or enabled by a notable male figure.

“Taylor Hunt’s direction is immensely competent, subtle and sensitive to naturalistic connections with the audience”

These short segments, portraying Carol Ann Duffy’s characteristic lyricism, tenderness, toughness and humour combine to make a tapestry that unveils rawly honest observations of women’s roles. Mrs. Wilde muses, “Yes, Oscar, I was ‘only’ woman - but I was looking at the stars.” Whilst the succinct Mrs Darwin scene prompts rapturous laughter with: “7th April 1852. Went to the zoo, I said to ‘Something about that chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.’”

The observations of more traditional wives are balanced alongside champions of equality from Emmeline Pankhurst to Michelle Obama. Obama’s emotional and empowering final speech as First Lady (here, a recording) is all the more impactful when followed by Mrs. Faust (Duffy) checking her lipstick in the mirror. It is as though Melania Trump has replaced Michelle on stage as swiftly as the American public’s vote exchanged White House families.

Taylor Hunt’s direction is immensely competent, subtle and sensitive to naturalistic connections with the audience. He really established his talent on the Cambridge scene with Tribes (2015) which, though now nearly two years have passed since its nightly standing ovations, is still regularly referenced as an optimal blueprint for an ADC production.

Whilst that was a six-hander play, his skill, here applied to a monologue form, reads like a well-managed collaboration between performer and director. Taylor Hunt gets the pacing just right, evading the risk of a set of poems seeming fragmented or displaced. Wife’s most visually compelling scene sees the wife puppeteering a husband made of newspaper. The finesse with which Taylor Hunt has Duffy operate the puppet to wipe his brow, shudder and eat, renders the banality of a daily task mesmerically opulent. Backgrounded by the cutting beats of Fink’s ‘Honesty’, the image has a particularly haunting rhythm.

“Duffy’s shape-shifting through different voices and characters is both relaxing and engaging to watch”

Surrounded by a minimalist set of clothes lines and household objects, Duffy’s shape shifting through different voices and characters is both relaxing and engaging to watch. She tackles American and a variety of native British accents with sophistication. Her performance is at its best when she drops into sharing a witticism or particularly astutely delivered character idiosyncrasy.

A particularly stand-out moment is when actor Duffy’s dry delivery combines with poet Duffy’s satirical flare in a hilarious phonetic parallel between “chronic irritation” and “colonic irrigation.” Mrs. Faust speaks of distractions at home in a biting portrayal of her husband’s adultery.

Audiences attending Wife should expect a Talking Heads-esque show case of poems as opposed to a linear narrative. Over time it will be interesting to see the piece’s confidence in each character grow. Duffy has a tough task in bringing distinctively nuanced, though heartfelt, emotion to each new character and this will be exciting to see evolve as the performance becomes further ingrained in her muscle memory.

The one source of frustration was that characters could be pitched to such an intimate crowd that it felt more of a filmic than theatrical scale. However, this is a short note about a work still in its early stages, getting used to different spaces, and under the development of immensely safe hands.

Review: Spiders

This down to earth piece reminds us that in a year when The Women’s March and gender equality have dominated headlines, we must all continue to engage in making the lives of women fortunate, equal and free. Challenging the status quo, free debate and art such as Wife will be timeless enablers of this cause