Aimée Stuart was a popular playwright between the wars, but she’s now virtually unheard of and her hit romantic comedy
Jeannie hasn’t been performed in London since 1940. If you think this sounds like a prime candidate for the Finborough you’d be right, and Nicolette Kay brings it to Earl’s Court as this year’s light-hearted Christmas show. And light-hearted fun is definitely the order of the day, despite Jeannie (Mairi Hawthorn) starting the play as essentially an unpaid servant to her miserly father, cooking, cleaning and, her personal nemesis, washing the sheets. He’s so mean, in fact, that despite charging the neighbours to borrow a cup of milk, when he dies Jeannie discovers he’s left behind £200 in savings. Having spent her whole life forbidden from spending any money on herself, Jeannie decides to put her skills to work as a housekeeper, but not before blowing most of her inheritance on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to Vienna.
