TILLY NO-BODY by Bella Merlin at Arcola Theatre until 25 July 2026

‘Informative and well-acted but creaky’ ★★★

An actor who can perform in a full-length fur coat over a full silk Lulu outfit beneath which is a close-fitting body suit – while temperatures are in the mid thirties – wins my admiration. Full marks for stamina and somehow Bella Merlin manages to keep her make up on too. I wish I knew the secret.

Merlin’s one woman play unfolds the life story of Tilly Wedekind, wife of the German playwright, Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) who predeceased her by over fifty years. It was a toxic relationship and there are a lot of references to poison and suicide in this piece although Frank and Tilly both died of natural causes. The contention is that Tilly never had a voice of her own. She spoke only the words Frank wrote for her and imposed on her in his plays in which she played lead roles. Then at the end of her life (she died in 1970) she wrote a memoir in which she describes their tortured, tumultuous, troubled but passionate and ultimately loving relationship.

Merlin is a talented actor and riveting to watch. She leaps about, shifts in time, changes her voice and switches the mood in flash. She also sings, ably accompanying herself on a rather pretty oval guitar – at one point while balanced on a circus ball which is an impressive trick although it doesn’t add much overall. She has a finely articulated voice whether she’s speaking or singing and some rather nice bottom notes. And there’s some reasonably effective puppetry which enables her to speak, as it were, to Frank in his puppet form and to the smaller puppet which represents herself.

Visually it works well enough with plenty of surprises in Kerry Jones’s set which includes several boxes. Pandora’s Box, was one of Wedekind’s “sex tragedies” and we’re presumably supposed to make that connection. Merlin herself springs out of a box at the start of the show.

If you don’t know much about Frank Wedekind and his wife you certainly will by the end of this seventy minute play. Sadly however, that’s all it does – gives an autobiographical account. According to the programme the action takes place over three days as Tilly metaphorically recovers from poisoning and is, as it were, reborn. This is not at all clear from the play itself.

TILLY NO-BODY

Written and performed by Bella Merlin

Directed by Miles Anderson

Arcola Theatre, Studio 2

7 – 25 July 2025

BOX OFFICE https://www.arcolatheatre.com/event/tilly-no-body/

Photography: Barry Schwartz