John Van Druten, the Anglo-American playwright, had many successes in London and New York, starting in 1925 with Young Woodley and ending with I Am A Camera in 1951. London Wall, which dates from 1931, takes place in the offices of a firm of solicitors over a three-week period and shows, with gentle humour, what life was like for so many women in the workplace 80 years ago. Secretaries and typists were underpaid and sexually harassed; and if they didn’t play their cards right they were liable to end up old maids in a boring job for life.
35-year-old Miss Janus (Alix Dunmore) has been with the firm for 10 years, earns £3 a week, and can’t wait to get married to her long-time lover whom she no longer loves. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Miss Milligan (Maia Alexander), who earns 30 shillings a week as a shorthand typist, is dated by a penniless 20-year-old clerk and the predatory, 30-year-old office manager (Alex Robertson, perfect, absolutely nauseating) who thinks he is God’s gift to women.
The play has abundant charm and Tricia Thorns’ production is extremely well acted by a first-class ensemble. The design by Alex Marker, as always at the Finborough, is a miracle of what can be achieved in a limited space with limited means. What the West End desperately needs is a small theatre to which fringe productions of this calibre could transfer. The once-legendary Arts Theatre rejuvenated could be the answer.