A PARISIAN brothel is the unlikely setting for the classic love story Camille, probably best remembered as a Garbo movie but starring Daniela Nardini in the Lyric Hammersmith version at Malvern.
Alexandre Dumas tackled difficult subject matter in this tale of a doomed heroine in an equally doomed love affair.
Marguerite, the prostitute played by Nardini, begins to show symptoms of tuberculosis just as she meets the artist Armand (Elliot Cowan).
They fall in love but an unhappy ending is inevitable, as the story is essentially told in flashback, beginning as it does with events following Marguerite's death.
The onus is on Nardini to engage sympathy for Marguerite's plight, despite her working girl background.
It is in the post-interval part of the play that Nardini comes into her own, as we wince at Marguerite's decline into increasing ill health, compounded by her final act of dedication to her beloved Armand.
Reveiw by PETER McMILLAN
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