About the Show

Multi-award-winning author Zadie Smith's playwriting debut.

Alvita will tell her life story to anyone. She has the gift of the gab, can rewrite past mistakes, turn pain into fables, and her love life into an epic poem.

'The Wife of Willesden' is a 21st-century translation of one of Chaucer's classic 'Canterbury Tales', and marks Zadie Smith's first work for the stage.

Critic Reviews (4)

For a previous production

In The Wife of Willesden, [Zadie Smith's] debut play, a modern version of one of the Canterbury Tales, Smith’s talent for mixing high and low is at full power.
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For a previous production

You could make a case for ‘The Wife of Willesden’ as the world’s coolest Middle English lecture: even if you don’t feel like you’ve learned about Chaucer, you will have done.
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For a previous production

Indhu Rubasingham’s production is full of brio and unpretentiously immersive, the supporting ensemble enlisting our sympathy with sidelong glances and sheepish grins. This is a bizarre and uneven evening, but in a good way.
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For a previous production

Presented in association with Brent Borough of Culture, The Wife of Willesden is a celebration of community and local legends, of telling a good story and living a life worth telling. Not bad for an original text that’s 600 years old.
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Trailer

Creative team