National Theatre Live: Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This is not the Taylor/Burton movie! I almost missed out on how good this James MacDonald stage production was, because of some subconscious expectations set by the 1966, Mike Nichol's movie. I give this production an 8 (great) out of 10. Imelda Staunton is brilliant in the role. And, although it doesn't have the heat of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the dynamic between Staunton and Hill Weaves it's own story. This is a British production of a classic piece of Americana, not just because it was written by an American playwright and set in a backwater college town in the States. It's themes are culturally American, it's social context and social politics are uniquely American, so there were so many places this production could have gone wrong, but, as at the heart of all good stories, it is a human drama, and they got that exquisitely right. My only criticism was that, although these Brit's accents were convincingly American, the younger couple, particularly Luke Treadaway, teetered on caricature rather than characterization.