Stanley Kauffmann

“Jackson did Stevie on the London stage, and with her as the lion aunt was Mona Washbourne, who is with her again in the film. In all the shouting, so well deserved, about Jackson, please, please let us not overlook Washbourne. This is fine character acting by a fine character actress at the apex of a long career: exquisitely controlled, beautifully selected, timed impeccably, utterly inhabited. See her in the doorway when Stevie is helped out of a taxi after her suicide attempt. See her--after her earlier scenes of marcelled hair and perfect composure--as illness encroaches, in her dressing gown, with one loose tendril of hair, making her way fearfully to her easy chair. It's an actor's poem about the passage of time.”

Stanley Kauffmann
The New Republic, July 25, 1981

Andrew Sarris

“…. Its central conceit is that its hyperarticulate characters speak aloud all the time even when they are supposed to be thinking or writing…. I felt the ancient call of the Word stirring deep in my image-worshiping soul. I was aided in my regression in no small measure by Glenda Jackson as Stevie Smith, Mona Washbourne as her aunt, Alec McCowen, and Trevor Howard, each of whom weaves a spell of words that should leave any civilized viewer moved and shaken….”

Andrew Sarris
Village Voice, date?, 1981

David Ansen

“…. But [Jackson] is not the whole show : Mona Washbourne is just as astonishing in her ‘stuff and nonense,’ teas-cosy way as Stevie’s ‘lion aunt,’ and her gradual descent into senility is masterfully evoked…. [I]t’s not for cinematic flash that one goes to ‘Stevie’—it’s for the special company that one agets to keep.”

David Ansen
Newsweek, August 3, 1981
(from my note card)

possibly Denby

“Mona Washbourne is so lovely as the aunt that you understand precisely how her volatile, neurotic niece could find a grounding for her disturbing art in commonplace things, in order, affection, small physical comforts….”

Cue listings, New York, July 27, 1981
(from my note card. Not sure if Denby)