Newsnight Review discussed Gillian Anderson in What The night is For.

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(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

ADAM MARS-JONES:
It's a tremendous performance. I have a bit of trouble with the play, because I don't think it's really about the things that it's about. I don't think it's really about fantasy, the survival of a romantic yearning, and all that. I think it's about the very interesting question of how do you hold an audience for more than two hours with two characters, one male, one female. It's a real problem, particularly as economics dictate that so often these days, one star is the most you can afford. So they can't be married, because that's no story, they can't be strangers, that's no story, so they have to be people with a past. But the way the information was titrated and the emotion balance shifted was beautifully managed, particularly by her. It's her tragedy that she's too young and too beautiful for the role, but nobody will mind while they watch. But it does seem to me, even the ending, you think, they can't end up together or apart, how will they solve that one?

DEBORAH BULL:
I must say, the idea of the play, for me, was about the shifting power balance in relationships, and how you choose that moment to lay your cards on the table. If you do it too soon, you blow it, if you do it too late, you blow it, and how this distance exists between the couple, and they dance back and forward. For me, that idea was more stimulating and more moving than the way they played it. I thought the chemistry was missing. I was painting my own emotions on to the situation I was seeing in front of me, which, in a sense, is what theatre is about. But although I thought she was incredibly strong, and he was not bad either, but the chemistry wasn't there.

KIRSTY WARK:
Adam says you can only afford one star, you but I felt that he was really struggling against her. He was only a foil, never an equal.

DEBORAH BULL:
I think his character wasn't as strong, which is interesting, because it was written by a man. He's written a much stronger woman than the man. But also, he was struggling with that accent. I really did feel the pain as he struggled to keep up that accent up. I wonder what kind of pressure that is for an actor.

ADAM MARS-JONES:
He did manipulate a toy cow very well. That was almost his best moment!

ALLISON PEARSON:
I agree that Michael Weller, the playwright, does brilliantly in the disclosing of the information, what's happened to each of them. How you always start off being proud, and saying, "I have got along brilliantly", and gradually, bit by bit, you realise each of them has been falling apart. But I agree with Deborah, you have got to believe in the agony and ecstasy of this relationship, otherwise how will it sustain the drama for a whole evenings? I was very bothered by Gillian Anderson's tights, because we hear after the end of the first scene that she has had two orgasms. But not only is she fully dressed, she is still wearing her tights.

KIRSTY WARK:
Didn't you think that she actually managed to get from this total control in her character, to something resembling hysteria. I thought there were some great moments which heightened the play. The problem, for me, was it was going along on a plane for too long.

ADAM MARS-JONES:
The moment where I thought things moved up a gear is when she used the phone. There is nothing drabber than the phone on stage, and particularly when the phone rings when they're having a clinch. But the first phone call she makes is fascinating, because she reveals her vulnerability to the man, while also remaining in control, which is the essence of the character, and to some extent, Gillian Anderson, who is a rather uncharacteristic American actress. It's all a sort of molten poise, she is not spontaneous, and the amount of reserve she has makes it particularly good for a play that playwright says was written about raw emotions. But she won't let it be that. At the same time, I had a restricted view of that moment. Maddeningly, I was in one of the best seats I have ever had in the theatre, and because of the table with its cloth, I could not see her face when she made that phone call. Please, director, get rid of the table cloth and have a glass table, so people in the stalls can see a great actress's face at an important moment in an interesting play.