Letitia Wright's The Story Split the Critics

The Story had its press night in the National Theatre's Olivier on Thursday 3 September, and the reviews followed overnight and through the next day. It is the UK premiere of Tracey Scott Wilson's newsroom drama, directed by Clint Dyer, and Letitia Wright's National Theatre debut: she plays Yvonne, with Lorraine Toussaint as Pat, Ashley Thomas as Neil, Aliyah Odoffin as Latisha and Wilf Scolding as Jeff. It began performances on 27 August and runs to 24 October.

The star ratings

• The Guardian (Arifa Akbar): four stars
• The Standard (Nick Curtis): four stars
• The Independent (Alice Saville): three stars
• The Stage (Dave Fargnoli): three stars
• Time Out (Andrzej Lukowski): three stars
• WhatsOnStage (Sarah Crompton): three stars
• The Telegraph (Dominic Cavendish) and The Times (Clive Davis): reviewed, star ratings not confirmed
• The Spectator (Lloyd Evans): no star rating, and negative
• Also: Afridiziak five; LondonTheatre.co.uk, BroadwayWorld and London Theatre 1 three each; The Reviews Hub 60%

At the top, the case is pace and the two leads. Akbar praised the momentum and kinetic pace of Dyer's staging and Wright's slick 'tough cookie' performance, and read the play as a dual portrait of Black female ambition, though she felt the speed sometimes loses the thread. Curtis, under the headline 'Cracking melodrama', called Wright and Toussaint powerful mirroring leads and said Dyer handles the overlapping scenes superbly, even if the action is strung out on the Olivier stage.

Dyer's staging drew most of the praise. The 2003 play underneath it drew most of the doubts.

In the middle, the verdicts are more about the play than the production. Saville found Dyer's revival flashy and pacy, said the play works very well on the Olivier stage and praised Wright's tough facade as it crumbles, but found its crafted ambiguity frustrating in the end. The Stage called it a dynamic revival of an overwrought 2003 newsroom drama. BroadwayWorld's Clementine Scott found the premise promising but thought the play falls flat, with so much going on at once that the narrative gets confused.

The sharpest criticism came from the Telegraph and the Spectator. Cavendish found the play timely on paper but overexposed and overblown in the Olivier, and the headline on Evans's Spectator review called it a cumbersome old play.

Seeing it

The Story runs in the Olivier until 24 October, at about 2 hours 30 minutes including an interval. The National's content advisory lists flashing lights, haze, loud noises, strong language and gunshots, with themes of racism, violence and police brutality, and references to sexual assault. Monday-to-Saturday evening and matinee tickets are £30, £42, £65, £85 and £110, plus a £4 per-order fee online and by phone. The National lists earlier 6.30pm starts on Tuesday 22 September, Thursday 1 October, Thursday 8 October and Tuesday 20 October, BSL-interpreted performances on Thursday 24 September and Wednesday 14 October, an audio-described performance on Friday 2 October, captioned performances on Saturday 10 October and Wednesday 21 October, and a relaxed performance on Saturday 17 October. Set by Anna Fleischle, costumes by Natalie Pryce, lighting by Paul Anderson, sound by Benjamin Grant, movement by Lucie Pankhurst, and video by Gino Ricardo Green and Tal Yarden. South Bank, SE1 9PX.