REVIEW: Mrs Warren’s Profession – at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Tuesday, July 28 until Saturday, August 1, 2015.

INCREDIBLY the ‘profession’ at the centre of this Victorian melodrama about the empowerment of women and their rights is never actually mentioned by word in this sparkling production from Cheltenham’s Everyman Theatre.

It’s referred to in a roundabout way that Mrs Warren is in the hotel business, but these establishments, it transpires, have a male-only clientele because it is, of course, referring to the oldest profession in the world… prostitution!

Written by social reformer George Bernard Shaw in 1894 this controversial play was not only banned in England, its hugely anticipated first public airing in New York was brought to a premature end when the entire cast and crew were arrested in a police raid mid-performance.

In England the Lord Chamberlain had deemed it ‘immoral and otherwise improper for the stage’ and it was banned for around 30 years - but fast forward to today and audiences will hardly turn a hair over Mrs Warren’s entrepreneurial skills, and probably neither would the Lord Chamberlain now.

Shaw’s original quest appears to have been to get his socialist point of view across about women having every right to determine their own lives, and to to have careers, which is why Vivie is none too happy about the return into her life of the mother who had been absent for years but has still been the benefactor of her highly successful education.

The forthright Mrs Warren, played with superb haughtiness by Sue Holderness - and it’s still difficult to shift thoughts of Marlene from Only Fools and Horses - is in great form as she runs through a gamut of bitter-sweet emotions in her futile efforts to control Vivie’s future.

Feisty Vivie, brushing off suitors as if they were irritating flies, will have no truck with her mother’s plans and Emily Woodward provides an excellent portrayal of a determined young woman steadfastly resolute on a career and making her own way in life, especially after the bombshell news of how her time at Cambridge had been funded. She’s not going to be messed around and you could sense the audience was right behind her too…

Among the rest of the six-strong cast Christopher Timothy’s caddish Sir George Croft took a little while to get into his stride but once warmed up there was no holding him.

Shaw’s play has its sporadically witty and comedic moments, largely involving Richard Derrington’s bumbling and often bemused Rev Samuel Gardner - who has a dark secret or two of his own, and also his incorrigible son Frank, stylishly played by Ryan Saunders, while Christopher Bowen’s Praed, who has an infectious enthusiasm for the arts, is immensely enjoyable.

A slick production from start to finish, it’s also a most welcome revival of a play that shouldn’t be allowed to fade away. It’s one of those which helped kick-start the theatre of reality and many of the issues raised are still as relevant some 120 years on.

All involved deserved to take a bow and the Everyman is to be fully applauded. It's a 'Shaw-fire' winner!