One of Britain’s greatest actresses, Olivier Award-winner, Dame Harriet Walter and her husband, American Broadway actor Guy Paul perform together for the first time in Clare Brennan’s tender two-hander BOA in one of London’s most intimate spaces at the Trafalgar Studios. The one and a half hour play is an honest account of a husband and wife, whose relationship spans thirty years of love, laughter, addiction and warfare. A large snake appears on the publicity material, but thankfully only metaphorically on stage. ‘Boa’ is the nickname of Harriet’s character Belinda. It relates on a number of levels, including her resemblence to the nocturnal snake and her passionate volatility as a heavy drinker described as ‘severe and slippery’.

“Sometimes her arm around your shoulders felt like a feather boa, and sometimes it felt like a big old snake squeezing the life out of you. I liked it.”

BOA runs for a strictly limited 5 week season at the 98 seat Trafalgar Studio 2, finishing on 7 March.