REBECCA Reid’s stage adaptation of Single White Female brings the iconic psychological thriller into sharp contemporary focus, transforming it into a tense, character-driven study of loneliness, identity and the dangerous hunger to belong.
At its centre is Allie, a recently-divorced entrepreneur struggling to rebuild her life while raising her teenage daughter Bella.
When financial pressures force her to take in a lodger, she chooses Hedy, quiet, considerate and the perfect fit for a household in transition.
What begins as a welcome source of stability quickly shifts into something far more unsettling. Hedy’s admiration for Allie becomes imitation and her helpfulness becomes intrusion.
Reid heightens the tension by weaving in the pressures of the digital age where boundaries blur and personal lives can be monitored, copied or rewritten with a few taps of a screen.
The flat becomes a claustrophobic battleground.
The production is directed by award-winning Gordon Greenberg who balances psychological tension with sleek theatricality, allowing intimate emotional stakes to sit alongside moments of sharp, unsettling spectacle.
The cast is led by Kym Marsh, a multiple award-winning performer who brings emotional depth, grit and authenticity to every role she inhabits.
Opposite her is Lisa Faulkner, a much-loved actor, presenter and food writer, whose performances are marked by intelligence, subtlety and an instinctive connection with character.
Other cast members were Andro (Graham), Johny McGarrrity (Sam) and Amy Snudden who wonderfully plays Bella.
In this sleek, unsettling production Marsh delivers the standout performance.
She consistently highlighted the precision and control of her portrayal of Hedy who shifts, sometimes within a single scene, from shy vulnerability to something far more calculating.
Marsh plays these turns with a quiet, needling intensity that keeps the audience deliciously uneasy.
Her Hedy is not a caricatured villain but a lonely, damaged woman whose desire to belong curdles into obsession, making her both chilling and strangely sympathetic.
Faulkner, as Allie, offers a contrasting stillness and emotional clarity.
She charts the character’s journey from tentative optimism to mounting dread with subtle shifts in tone and physicality, giving the production its emotional anchor.
Together they create a taut, compelling dynamic and psychological dance in which admiration, fear and dependency twist ever tighter.
Their performances are the engine of the production, driving its tension and giving this familiar story fresh, unsettling life.
The play runs until Saturday.
Brian Owen reviewed the play on Tuesday, June 9.
