Dashed hopes and good intentions.

After stunning with her powerhouse performance as Momma Rose in 2015's revival of Gypsy, Imelda Staunton returns to the West End in 2017 in the late Edward Albee's masterpiece alongside Game of Thrones' Conleth Hall. The pair will take on the central roles of Martha and George, a married couple for whom psychological games and emotional terrorism defines their fractious domesticity.

Good, better, best, bested

After a party at the university where each of them works, middle aged George and Martha arrive home with a younger couple, Nick (Luke Treadaway) and Honey (Imogen Poots), in tow. Invited by Martha and to the chagrin of George, the two soon find themselves witness to the older couple's increasingly worrying relationship dynamic. Over three acts Nick and Honey go from horrified observers to finding themselves in the middle of a war of words, becoming unwitting players in a full blown marital breakdown, with explosive consequences.

First appearing in 1962 and winning the Tony Award for Best Play the following year, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is certainly one of Albee's most noted works, with the scathing story of a declining relationship retaining relevance for each generation of audiences. In 1966 Director Mike Leigh immortalised both the play and the famously tempestuous relationship of its stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.