REVIEW: Single White Female

© Chris Bishop

A psychological Hollywood thriller from the 1990’s that set the cinema box-office on fire now comes to the stage in a fiery and passionate version that is guaranteed to leave the audience gasping.

Single White Female is now playing at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.

Barbet Schroeder’s erotic thriller was released in 1992 and caused an immediate sensation with audiences and also set a new cultural trend in mainstream cinema. The movie may not have touched the hearts and minds of film critics of the era but it certainly resonated with audiences.

The stage version by Rebecca Reid updates the action to the current era that is drenched in social media and cyberspace, and the action moves from New York to England.

The story follows a single mother who is struggling to make ends meet after a divorce. She takes in a lodger and in doing so opens a door to a world of betrayal, heartache, manipulation, grooming, obsession, paranoia and horror that will leave a mark upon everyone involved.

The drama highlights the real dangers posed by mobile phone technology, the doctoring of personal photographs via insidious use of AI, fake news that pushes divisive and corrosive agendas, toxic social media platforms that peddle misogyny, hatred and bullying, and how children and adults are influenced by these disturbing factors that surround them on a daily basis.  

In this stage adaptation the introduction of a teenage daughter allows the writer to throw a cautionary spotlight on childhood and how it is being lost, abused, and groomed by forces beyond the control of parents whose attention is focused elsewhere such as working, paying bills, and finding some sort of equilibrium in a rapidly changing world where societal rules and parameters keep shifting and where the lines of morality become blurred.

This production, directed by Gordon Greenberg, is a lusty and pulsating attack on the senses and grips the audience right from the very start with an opening that cannot be revealed in a review. It has to be seen, be experienced, be felt.

This is theatre where the thrills come thick and fast, where the drama keeps mounting, where the tension keeps rising, and where the emotions erupt in unexpected ways.

Kym Marsh (Coronation Street), who was absolutely sensational as the obsessive Alex in Fatal Attraction (which was performed at The Alexandra Theatre in 2022) now makes a triumphant return as the coercive, sinister, and psychotic Hedy in Single White Female. She is charming, seductive, confident, full of warmth and camaraderie, and then as the drama unfolds, she becomes a creature of nightmare who harbours dark secrets and desires. March inhabits and absorbs the character of Hedy to such an alarming degree that it becomes scary and unnerving.

Lisa Faulkner (Eastenders, Brookside) is the trusting Allie who unwittingly invites Hedy into her life. Faulkner showcases a range of emotions that enrich her character, and by the climax the audience can feel her anxieties, insecurities and anguish as she realises the full extent of Hedy’s carefully executed plan that has ensnared Allie and those she loves.

Despite being a dark and brooding drama, there are moments of warmth and hope which add balance, and the end result is memorable.

As the curtain closed at the climax the audience was immediately on their feet to deliver thunderous applause.

Single White Female is a thrilling and bold production that makes the audience gasp.

Verdict: ★★★★

Single White Female is running at The Alexandra Theatre until Saturday 9^th May 2026