REVIEW: Stevie, Hampstead Theatre ✭✭✭

Stevie starring Zoe Wannamaker at the Hampstead Theatre

In the title role, Zoe Wanamaker is in terrific form. She is wholly believable as a woman out of place in the world but entirely at home in the confines of her abode. Lynda Baron is superbly sweet as Aunt Lion, the tough old spinster who runs the house where Stevie lives. Men played little more than an accessory role in Stevie’s life and aspects of that are summed up in the three characters played by Chris Larkin, whose best moment comes when he recites Smith’s Drowning, Not Waving, possibly her most famous poem. It’s a beautiful moment in a quietly engaging, gentle play.