Five Olivier Awards. Nearly 50 years on the British stage. And until last year, Imelda Staunton had never performed alongside her own daughter.
That changed with “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” George Bernard Shaw’s incendiary drama about a mother and daughter at moral war over money, survival, and the oldest profession. The production, filmed live from London’s West End, screens at Boston Court Pasadena on Tuesday, January 20, at 7 p.m. as part of the venue’s National Theatre Live series.
Staunton plays Mrs. Kitty Warren, a former prostitute turned brothel proprietor who has used her fortune to give her daughter Vivie every advantage: boarding schools, Cambridge University, a path to respectability. Vivie, played by Staunton’s real-life daughter Bessie Carter, wants nothing to do with her mother’s money once she learns where it came from.
Shaw wrote the play in 1893. The Lord Chamberlain banned it for being “immoral and improper” — not because it featured a sex worker, but because that sex worker wasn’t sufficiently punished for her choices. London audiences didn’t see a public performance until 1925, more than three decades after Shaw put pen to paper.
The play’s argument remains pointed: women turn to prostitution not from moral failure but from economic necessity. Mrs. Warren defends her choices with brutal pragmatism. Her daughter responds with the rigid idealism of someone who has never had to choose between starvation and shame.
“The new year felt like the perfect time to return to the stage in Mrs Warren’s Profession, a play which asks ever pertinent questions about the role of women in society, and the choices they make for survival,” Staunton said when the production was announced. “I couldn’t be happier to be stepping into the rehearsal room with my very great friend and colleague Dominic; and my brilliant daughter Bessie.”
That colleague is director Dominic Cooke, himself a five-time Olivier winner who previously directed Staunton in “Follies” at the National Theatre and “Hello, Dolly!” at the London Palladium — the musical that earned Staunton her fifth Olivier in April 2025.
Carter, 32, emerged from her parents’ formidable shadow with her own career. Her father is Jim Carter, who played the imperious butler Mr. Carson on “Downton Abbey.” She trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and won the Spotlight Prize in 2016. American audiences know her best as Prudence Featherington, the hapless eldest sister in Netflix’s “Bridgerton.”
The West End critics were emphatic. “Imelda Staunton is magnificent,” wrote The Independent. “Startlingly fresh,” said Time Out. “An extraordinary tour de force,” declared WhatsOnStage.
The screening runs approximately two hours. Tickets are available at bostoncourtpasadena.org or by calling 626-683-6801. Boston Court is located at 70 N. Mentor Ave., with free parking in the lot behind the building. Additional screenings take place January 14 and 17 at 2 p.m.
Shaw gave his fictional mother and daughter no easy reconciliation. The real ones, at least, got a standing ovation.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession screens Tuesday, January 20, at 7 p.m. Additional screenings take place January 14 and 17 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase online. Boston Court Pasadena is located at 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Free parking is available in the lot behind the building. For more information, call 626-683-6801 or visit bostoncourtpasadena.org.
