Review of Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler for The Live Review
September 2025
September 2025
"COULD THE FATHER OF PSYCHOANALYSIS HAVE DIAGNOSED, AND EVEN DISARMED, THE MAKING OF A DICTATOR?"
A review by Charlotte Mason-Mottram
Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler, by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, is a play that delights in unsettling its audience. Staged at the Upstairs at the Gatehouse theatre in Highgate Village, it takes one of history’s most infamous figures and places him on the chaise longue of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.
The premise is absurd, almost comic, but the execution is deeply unnerving: could the father of psychoanalysis have diagnosed, and perhaps even disarmed, the making of a dictator?
The play opens with a mischievous trick. Freud appears to be addressing thin air, only for the young Adolf Hitler (Sam Mac) to reveal himself in a moment that draws laughter before the unease sets in. Ruby Ablett, as Freud’s daughter Anna, narrates with clarity, grounding the audience in context while letting the drama unfold with a historian’s eye.
“HE CRAVES CELEBRITY – I FEAR IT IS A DISEASE OF THE NEW CENTURY”
Sam Mac deserves particular praise for his chilling portrayal of Hitler. He transforms from a bed-wetting, almost mute young man into a figure of venom and rage. The physicality of his performance is astonishing: his posture stiffens, his face twists, and his words are spat like poison across the stage. It is a Hitler made human, and then horrifyingly magnetic, a study in how weakness curdles into fury.
Sam Mac deserves particular praise for his chilling portrayal of Hitler. He transforms from a bed-wetting, almost mute young man into a figure of venom and rage. The physicality of his performance is astonishing: his posture stiffens, his face twists, and his words are spat like poison across the stage. It is a Hitler made human, and then horrifyingly magnetic, a study in how weakness curdles into fury.
Props are cleverly repurposed: books become teacups and domestic objects fold into symbols of larger meaning, while lines of dialogue carry chilling resonance. “He craves celebrity—I fear it is a disease of the new century,” Freud observes. It is a diagnosis that speaks as much to our present as to the past, making the laughter in the room catch uncomfortably in the throat.
Brendan Lyle is especially compelling, first as Otto Rank, Freud’s colleague, and later as an SS officer. His physical transformation between Jew and Nazi is stark, a reminder of how identities and allegiances were fractured and weaponised. Jonathan Tafler’s Freud balances authority with vulnerability, his dry wit slowly giving way to fear as the power dynamic shifts.
“I UNDERESTIMATED YOUR ABILITY TO MOULD OUR WORLD BASED ON YOUR DREAMS”
That shift comes late in the play, when Hitler returns, no longer the insecure, suppressed bet-wetting patient but a man with the apparatus of terror behind him. Freud falls asleep, reduced to a frail body on his chaise longue, while Hitler quietly watches over him, smirking. The patient has become the master; the analyst is forced to submit to world domination.
That shift comes late in the play, when Hitler returns, no longer the insecure, suppressed bet-wetting patient but a man with the apparatus of terror behind him. Freud falls asleep, reduced to a frail body on his chaise longue, while Hitler quietly watches over him, smirking. The patient has become the master; the analyst is forced to submit to world domination.
The play leaves a lingering, uncomfortable question: Could one man, even Freud, have stopped Hitler? The suggestion is less about blame and more about inevitability. Disturbing and darkly funny, the play unsettles not by rewriting history but by making us see it differently, if only for two hours.
Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler is running at Upstairs At The Gatehouse until Sunday 28 September.