REVIEW: Ashes and Diamonds at White Bear Theatre until 16 May 2026

‘Elizabeth Counsell is convincing … it’s a subtle, resonant performance’ ★★★ ½

Into a room lined with mementoes shuffles an old, old woman. It’s maybe her one hundredth birthday and all her family are clustered around, but there seems to be more sadness than celebration, and she finds it extraordinarily hard to get anyone’s attention. And this is a woman who is used to being noticed.

Elizabeth Counsell presents a monologue, written by Gail Louw, directed by Anthony Shrubsall, that tells the life and times of Sara Tauba Klagsbrun, who was born in Tarnow in Poland, escaped from Poland to Antwerp to avoid the German invaders, escaped again from the invasion of Belgium, just about got to England, and then had some diamond times, putting the ashes of Holocaust Europe behind her.

It’s been a full life, with loves and family and Chanel gowns, and now, here at the end, she has time to reflect on the good and the bad, the ashes and the diamonds, and on her warring relationship with her daughter.

Elizabeth Counsell is convincingly an ageing glamour-puss with a selfish bent, and still making her a survivor, a winner, a brave confronter of overwhelming forces ranged against her. It’s a subtle, resonant performance. The focus on a single flawed individual, however, is perhaps less effective at making Sara live. We have to treat her anecdotes as the whole story when we can hear how unreliable and self-serving she is. It’s the story of a Polish Jewess who makes it through, and it hints at the cost she has to pay for surviving. There needs to be more honesty available, more reason to believe this woman has been, is, loved. Elizabeth Counsell does a very creditable job, maybe Gail Louw could have made it somewhat easier.

Ashes and Diamonds at White Bear Theatre 5 - 16 May 2026

BOX OFFICE https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/whatson/ashes-and-diamonds

Photo Credit: Paddy Gormley