Who am I? Where am I? And Who do I love? These are the three questions Orlando asks himself and then herself as they are tumbled through time, gender and geography. Hundreds of years and lovers come and go in this high-spirited helter-skelter of literary fun. And, it turns out that the answer is very definitely; it depends.

Born a man of extreme wealth in a home of 365 rooms Orlando (Emma Corrin) has the most privileged of births. He is both beautiful and eligible. He is barely in his teens when Queen Elizabeth I (Lucy Briers) offers a life of private love and gilded luxury, as long as she can continue to affect the image of the Virgin Queen to her subjects. A series of other wifely candidates are also paraded in front of him. But he wants true love rather than the melding of status and estates. Eventually, he thinks he finds it in the Russian aristocrat Sasha (Millicent Wong) but he is used for sex and cast aside, heartbroken. In fits of narcolepsy, he falls through decades of time, and cultural changes to find, one day, that she awakes as a woman. Her wealth still exists but is no longer hers to command. Her gender prohibits it. And she is still faced with the question Who am I? Where am I? And Who do I love?

The pace is frantic. Orlando spins through 400 years in a play that lasts less than two hours. It could be too much but Neil Bartlett, adapting from Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando, keeps a firm hand on the tiller through a couple of helpful theatrical devices. There is a greek chorus of Virginia Woolfs who relate the story back to the questions that Woolf had about her own sexuality and the role of women in society. They provide the play’s biographical grounding.  And then there is the glorious scene-stealing Mrs Grimsditch (Deborah Findlay) who channels a Catherine Tate-like energy into the role of the dresser, who eases Orlando in and out of the costumes of their time and gender, and their attached expectations. 

It’s a knowing and timely piece that gives large repeated winks to the current debates about gender fluidity and transition. The element that is missing is pain. Emma Corrin delivers a charismatic performance but there are few pauses given to explore the agonies that love and change bring so that the audience is left breathless rather than tearful. Neil Bartlett has chosen to explore a playful and comic romp through gender rather than an indictment of misogyny. In our age of performative anger, he has chosen an anachronistically gentler path.