TheQR (@theqr.bsky.social)

"Forget the awful sets and appreciate the words." Author David Irvin pulls no punches on modern West End revivals. We discuss his new book, putting Hedda Gabler on the couch, and why Ibsen's text needs no fixing. #Ibsen #Theatre #DavidIrvin #BBCFour

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Interview: David Irvin Diagnoses The 2026 Ibsen Renaissance "Professionally, I could not encourage suicide," notes David Irvin, pausing to consider how he might treat the most desperately cornered woman in nineteenth-century literature. It is an interesting proposition: Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, fresh from the catastrophic death of Eilert Løvborg, trading her father's pistols for a quiet session in a Whitstable consulting room. "I surmise you envisage that she is coming to see me after the death of Eilert Lovborg and she is therefore trapped and in the power of Judge Brack," Irvin continues, diagnosing the fictional crisis with the measured pragmatism of a man accustomed to dealing with human wreckage. https://theqr.co.uk/2026/04/19/interview-david-irvin-diagnoses-the-2026-ibsen-renaissance/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=jetpack_social