Bette and Joan: The Final Curtain, review: Hollywood giants still a star attraction
Tale of Bette Davis (above) and Joan Crawford offers pathos and irreverance
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Icons season in the studio has begun strongly with this wittily macabre bitch-fest, scripted by James Greaves and co-devised by the performers. It imagines Bette Davis (Sarah Thom) on her death bed in 1989 confronting the horror of having to spend eternity with her great rival Joan Crawford (Sarah Toogood).
The droll framework is that, on deliberately lurid and wonky film footage, Thom and Toogood also get to portray, respectively, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, arch Hollywood gossip columnists. This bug-eyed, posthumous pair still appear to be controlling destinies in the afterlife and have sent Joan, who died 12 years earlier, as their emissary to “ease [Davis’s] journey to the other side”.
The malice of the mission is very amusingly handled, as are the many echoes of the sadistic set-up in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the one picture in which the legends appeared together. Davis claims that she was an actress whereas Crawford was merely a star. “You don’t do theatre, do you? Too scared.” “Too employed,” wisecracks Joan. But there are passages where they speak in unison, pointing up the many similarities between the two and the price they’ve paid as women for their Hollywood success. So there’s a pathos in the piece as well as spirited irreverence.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments