Jean Brodie has entered the classroom of Mr Lowther (Brian Ferguson). She tells the music teacher she will not be a distraction. “Proceed as if I wasn’t here,” she says.
Yeah, right. Nothing can proceed as if Jean Brodie was not there. Played by Gayle Rankin in a drape-sleeved top and figure-hugging leather skirt, she is impossible to ignore. Chloe Lamford’s dust-pink set is a little bit lecture theatre, an awful lot neo-classical staircase; Rankin floats across it like an exotic moth: colourful, distractable, ever present.
Pupils and teachers loathe or love her. You never doubt why. She is compellingly herself. [READ MORE]