Last night Owen and I went to the last night of A DOLL'S HOUSE at the Donmar.

Somehow I have never managed to catch a staged production of it before although I read it years ago and have also seen the rather dull Joseph Losey film from the early 70s with Jane Fonda as a far-too-modern Nora.

We seem to be going though an updating vibe with Ibsen at the moment: the National Theatre recently staged MRS. AFFLECK, a re-write of LITTLE EYOLF which set the action in 1950s England - for no good reason as most of the critics attested - and the Donmar's production used a version by Zinnie Harris who has moved the action from 1879 Norway to 1909 London, again for no discernible reason.

Nora is the cossetted, spoiled wife of a seemingly doting politician husband but she hides a secret. Years before when her husband was struck down with an illness that could have jeopardised his career, she borrowed money from Kelman, a colleague of her husband - faking her dying father's signature as a co-signee - so she could take her husband away to recuperate. Since then she has repaid the debt silently with money she has saved from scrimping on the housekeeping money and doing small jobs for friends behind her husband's back. Nora's world is thrown into chaos however when Kelman is demoted from the Cabinet on charges of fraud and is replaced by her husband. Kelman calls on Nora secretly and, although she has one payment left, says he will not return her IOU unless she manages to get her husband to intercede on his behalf. If she doesn't he will tell her husband about her secret loan. Nora is all too aware of her husband's loathing for Kelman and the danger this poses to her marriage. Even with the help of the dying family friend Dr. Rank and her recently re-discovered schoolfriend Christine, ultimately Nora must face her husband and expose the truth not only of her predicament but of their marriage. Despite an accent that sometimes sounded like Fenella Fielding was her vocal coach, Gillian Anderson was a fine Nora, a woman with hidden abilities trapped in the roles of wife and mother. Her realisation of her worth in her husband's eyes at the end of the play was admirably played, growing in strength and steely determination making her famous act of defiance fully believable. She also managed to find the humour in the character, none more so than when dropping one of her smuggled-in Macaroons on the stage, she snatched it up, played with it, then wolfed it down.

Toby Stephens played her politician husband and while he certainly found the right hypocritical air of the character, he ultimately was unable to make him more than a hiss-the-villain caricature. He also had the really annoying habit of walking across the stage skiffing his feet - I look forward to him one day playing the role he was born to play - Steppin Fetchit. No such worries with Anton Lesser as Dr. Rank, a subtle performance of humour and resignation.

Christopher Ecclestone played Kelman, the disgraced politician and Nora's nemesis and he didn't really manage to do much with the part. I suspect he suffered more than anyone at the unnecessary tinkering with the plot by Zinnie Harris. In the original his character works at the bank where Nora's husband is made manager which certainly work better as a plot device for him giving the money to her for the secret loan. He worked well with Tara Fitzgerald as the standard Ibsen 'other' woman - here a schoolfriend of Nora's who once loved Kelman but who had to marry another man for financial security for her family. An updated version of A DOLL'S HOUSE in which an MP's wife is possibly involved in fraudulent action and the MP himself is seen to be only interested in protecting his image as a good husband and honest man can't help but raise cynical laughs at this time but I lost count of the amount of times I flinched at the clunkers in her text - surely even the most distressed 1909 ex-cabinet ministers would probably never have said "I have your husband by the testicles" as Kelman says to Nora.I liked the empty towering bookshelves and rotunda skylight in Anthony Ward's library set - Owen has visibly itching to clamber down onto the set and show them how to decorate the large Christmas tree in the corner! Hugh Vanstone's lighting came into it's own during the final confrontation - changing from an icy blue moonlight through the overhead skylight to a white light of a cold winter morning as Nora left her Doll's House for good.