All About Eve (2018 production): Trailer, certificate and where to watch
A study in jealousy starring Gillian Anderson and Lily James
Year: 2018
Certificate: pg
Watch now on National Theatre At Home
All About Eve started life as a short story, but most people know it as a hit film, with Anne Baxter as the initially demure Eve and Bette Davis as Margo, the Broadway veteran Eve claims to adore then steadily eclipses, taking over one part of her life after another.
Gillian Anderson plays Margo in this National Theatre production, with Downton's Lily James as Eve. The production nods to the movie in the way it uses a screen mounted high above the actors, showing us perspectives we can't see in our view of the stage, such as different angles on scenes like parties and dinners.
What makes the drama work is the way Anderson manages to convey the vulnerability of Margo without losing any of her raging power, and how James's Eve really does come across as initially harmless - which makes Margo's rising fear of her seem all the more tragic. There's another, wider tragedy waiting behind that though, and that's the way the showbiz machine chews people up and spits them out, particularly women, over and over - which is arguably as true today as it was when All About Eve hit cinemas in 1950. (130 minutes)
