Twelfth Night – National Theatre

The National Theatre had a pretty impressive year in 2016 resuming its position as one of London’s most consistent and forward-thinking theatres, mixing reimagined classics with new writing. Under Rufus Norris’s artistic directorship its output has felt fresh, diverse and above all innovative, with Annie Baker’s The Flick, Robert Icke’s cinematic The Red Barn and Ivo van Hove’s eviscerating take on Hedda Gabler standing out in a year of hits. And the future is already full of promise with tickets to the revival of Angels in America selling like a rock concert, and new works like Consent to come in 2017, not to mention a 2018 announcement of Macbeth with Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff, as well as apparently Ralph Fiennes in Anthony and Cleopatra (announced a year ago but no further details), it’s fair to say you now go to the National expecting to be wowed.

But first up for 2017 is a new production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night a perennial Christmas favourite that has nothing to do with the festive season, hence a February opening.  It is clear from the promotional photography that this tale of disguise and unrequited love will largely focus on its comedy characters with Tamsin Greig taking the starring role as the re-gendered Malvolia. And the recasting allows the company to add freshness to an often performed play by playing with notions of sexuality – ideas hinted at in Shakespeare’s text through the frisson between Orsino and Viola when she is disguised as Cesario.

So the plot is an intricate one, starting with a shipwreck that parts twins Viola and Sebastian who both arrive in Illyria thinking the other had perished. Disguised as a boy called Cesario, Viola enters the employ of Duke Orsino and falls in love with him, but Orsino is in love with local noblewoman Olivia, who has foresworn all men. Orsino sends Cesario as messenger but Olivia falls in love with him, not realising its Viola in disguise. Running in parallel, Olivia’s drunken relative Sir Toby Belch and her servants decide to teach the arrogant steward Malvolia a lesson by letting her think Olivia loves her and orchestrate Malvolia’s public humiliation. People are disguised, hearts ache, wires are crossed and hilarity ensues, but Sebastian is still on the island and soon becomes involved in the mix-ups.

The National’s production, which has its press night on Wednesday, is primarily focused on the comedy aspects of the tale which downplays the central romantic stories and partially side-lines the play’s main character Viola. Director Simon Godwin who previously oversaw the brilliantly riotously The Beaux’ Stratagem at the National in 2015 which was a perfectly pitched farce, brings that knowledge to bear on this production of Twelfth Night helping his fine cast to find the levity in Shakespeare’s text while adding plenty of humorous physical and visual comedy touches. The result hasn’t yet meshed into a finely tuned show but, only a few performances in, there are a series of nicely realised comic scenarios which should link more seamlessly as the cast settle into the rhythm.

Aside from the cast, the real star of this version is the ever inventive Soutra Gilmour’s rotating fold-out pyramid set which simply transports the players to various settings relatively smoothly, while offering a slightly dreamlike feel. It starts as the bow of Viola and Sebastian’s ship steered into the rocks that set the story on its way, before triangular segments fold out into Olivia’s glass panelled villa, bricked street scenes, Olivia’s garden and even a gay bar with singing drag Queen – crooning Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech. There’s also a large staircase leading to the top which gives the actors something to run around on but also a place to overhear or spy on the action. There were a couple of sticky moments when bits of the set malfunctioned forcing the actor’s to improvise, and the various flaps need to be walked into place by visible technicians, but Gilmour’s 30s meets 70s meets modern interpretation is fascinating, and she has amassed an eclectic body of work.

Gender-swapping within the cast is seamlessly done and makes perfect sense in the context of Godwin’s production. Leading them is Tamsin Greig’s Malvolia who initially puts you in mind of Shakespeare’s other great verbose and fussy attendant, Polonius from Hamlet. Grieg’s first appearance is as a severe and dark presence, clean black bob, and starkly dressed in plain shirt and culottes. The overall appearance is of an ogerish governess, humourless and unimpressed with those around her but certain that her own thoughts and actions are perfect behaviour. That all changes brilliantly on receipt of the faked letter from Olivia and the big reveal of Malvolia in the yellow stockings in part two, which has to be seen rather than spoiled, is a brilliantly timed piece of comedy which Greig relishes superbly. It’s a fun and wide-ranging performance that pins the show together really well.

Equally entertaining is Phoebe Fox’s almost entirely comic Olivia whose over-eager declarations of love and single-minded pursuit of Cesario are a real highlight. Fox brings initial restraint to Olivia, who is in mourning for her recently deceased father and brother, and is clearly a determined, strong young woman who bats away Orsino’s attentions and is admirably unwavering. Yet with the arrival of Cesario Fox utilises these character traits to great effect in trying to capture the object of her affection, as well as making the most of any opportunity to show a giggly or more suggestive aspect of the character.

Completing the comic set is the excellent Tim McMullen as Sir Toby Belch, Daniel Rigby as Sir Andrew Augecheek, Doon Mackichan as a gender-swapped fool Feste and Niki Wardley as Maria Olivia’s chambermaid who masterminds the plan against Malvolia. It’s a nicely delineated group but together love revelry and drive much of the comedy forward, with McMullen –sartorially channelling Laurence Llewelyn Bowen – and Wardley in particularly making an excellent team as the partying nobleman and the cheeky maid who takes control of him.

The lovers do get pretty short shrift in this version of the play and Orsino’s appearances which bookend the play make it difficult to understand how quickly he transfers his affection from Olivia to Viola. Oliver Chris’s Orsino is a bit of a playboy at the start, driving his sports car on stage to overtly attract Olivia with generic flowers but he genuinely seems devoted as he later mopes through a party-scene. With the emphasis on the comic, we get less chance to see the relationship with Cesario / Viola tip over into something more romantic.

Tamara Lawrance’s Viola is satisfyingly tomboyish making her male disguise convincing and, a difficult thing in modern versions of Shakespeare’s plays, almost believable. And while she hasn’t quite captured the depth of the romance, it’s still early days and that will come. Finally Daniel Ezra is an excellent Sebastian, suitably perplexed by the mistaken identity dramas and with plenty of swagger to give the fight scenes credibility. But there is a hint at Sebastian’s homosexuality in scenes with ship’s captain Antonio and at the gay bar which aren’t followed though when he becomes embroiled in the story with Olivia.

It’s still early in the run and with a couple of previews left before press night there is time to smooth the flow and link more consistently between the high comic moments and the rest of the play which will make its long three hour run time skip more quickly. There are lots of lovely comic performances which carry it along very nicely and, Gilmour’s spectacular set aside, while the show may not have the wow of recent National Theatre productions or build to the farcical pitch it aspires to, this version of Twelfth Night is an entertaining and well-staged evening with plenty of fun moments that keep the audience laughing.

Twelfth Night is at The National Theatre until 13 May and tickets start at £15.  It will be broadcast live to cinemas on 6 April, and is also part of the Friday Rush scheme, offering tickets for the following week at £20 – available from 1pm on Fridays. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1

Hedda Gabler – National Theatre

“Academics are no fun” according to Hedda Gabler in Patrick Marber’s modern reworking of Ibsen’s famous play, but they are dependable, reliable and safe, so despite years of flirtation and numerous suitors she marries one because it was time. This year we have seen some particularly outstanding female performances; Helen McCrory in The Deep Blue Sea and Billy Piper in Yerma were two of the finest portrayals not just in 2016 but any year, and with a couple of weeks to go Ruth Wilson joins them with her take on the infamous heroine.

Ivo van Hove is one of the few theatre directors who is as well-known as his productions. Much like Robert Icke, Carrie Cracknell and Jamie Lloyd, his style is distinctive, recognisable and notably innovative – incidentally this production of Hedda is sharing the Lyttelton stage with Icke’s astonishing version of The Red Barn (which earned my first five star professional review) staring Mark Strong who’s last stage appearance was coincidentally in van Hove’s game-changing A View From the Bridge. To Hedda Gabler, van Hove brings his ability to deconstruct classic plays and sweep away preconceptions to create slicing visions of quite modern people engaged in battles against their own destruction.

Hedda Gabler is a much admired local society beauty who surprises the town by marrying quiet up-and-coming academic Tesman. The play opens as the couple return home from a 6 month honeymoon and research trip to the house Hedda once claimed she always wanted and to face the men she once dallied with including Judge Brack who continues to visit in the hope of an opportunity.  As Hedda begins to suffocate, rival academic Lovborg returns to town with his lover Mrs Elvsted, casting doubt on Tesman’s academic future, and when Hedda decides to alleviate her boredom by meddling with the relationships around her, she brings only destruction.

van Hove’s production is strikingly modern from the off, and instantly sets it apart from earlier period-set versions – including Sheridan Smith’s excellent take at the Old Vic in 2012. We’re used to seeing Ibsen in claustrophobic rooms overstuffed with furniture that mimics the oppression of his characters, but here van Hove instead introduces a virtually bare city apartment, designed by Jan Versweyveld, suggesting both the current poverty of the newlyweds unable to furnish it to the standards Hedda expected, and reiterating the idea that it is the moral and emotional lives of the characters that oppresses them not their décor. They would be equally tormented in any room and it is credit to van Hove and particularly to Wilson that they manage to fill the cavernous Lyttleton stage with Hedda’s interior life.

Occasionally referred to as the female Hamlet, this version departs somewhat from the idea of inevitable doom and instead slowly charts the descent of a smart woman, used to controlling and toying with those around her who stubbornly refuses to help herself when several opportunities for escape present themselves. She is more than merely a bird in a cage, but someone who has built that cage for herself and (almost morally) refuses to go back on her word, accepting the consequences. So, the play’s conclusion comes not from certainty but after a moment of weakness is politically outmanoeuvred and backed into a corner by fear of the kind of public scandal which has kept her marriage intact.

Wilson’s Hedda is complex and fascinating, managing to tread the line between alluring and repellent, victim of circumstance and active agent in events. During the first half we see her frustration build and snap; she’s barely civil to her husband and his aunt, rapidly wheedles the truth with faux friendship from Mrs Elvsted and relishes the moments of flirtation with Lovborg and Brack. Coming back from a dull honeymoon, Wilson shows Hedda slowly resuming her former, rather vicious and arrogant, character and belief in her power over others, so at the interval she feels emboldened by the havoc she has unleashed.

In the second half of the evening we see just how wrong she has been, so here Wilson is able to display Hedda’s delusion and vulnerability – particularly as a supposedly strong woman that never leaves that empty house. Her belief in her irresistibility comes crashing down as both her liaisons prove, in her words, “vulgar” and still fails to realise that her husband is the only man who genuinely loved her unconditionally. Meanwhile the small victory she claims in the first half over Lovborg and Mrs Elvsted is brutally revisited upon her and, on stage throughout, Wilson conveys every nuance of Hedda’s suffering and loss of spirit as fate turns against her. It is an excellent and meaningful performance that doesn’t try to make you like her, but compels you to watch her nonetheless.

Wilson is given excellent support by the rest of the cast, particularly Rafe Spall as Brack. Often portrayed as a bearded old man, this young Judge is slick, confidence and right out of some sinister gangster movie. Spall is all charm and determination as he oils is way around Hedda in the early scenes, but not put off by her refusals to betray her marriage, he is also a predator and waits for the perfect opportunity to bite. The chemistry with Wilson crackles as they flirt dangerously with one another, which is a high point of the show.

Likewise there is considerable chemistry with Chukwudi Iwuji’s Lovborg, a man driven by the discovery of his own genius and the fruition of his ideas. Along with Mrs Elvsted – an occasionally stilted but felt Sinead Matthews – they are the counterpoint to Hedda and Tesman’s relationship, one built on mutual understanding, support and respect which Hedda decides to destroy. Poldark fans will recognise Kyle Soller’s Tesman, a character not that dissimilar to Francis who also married a women who didn’t love him, but here Soller retains his natural American accent which does stand out a bit, especially as the narrative has all the characters originating in the same town. Nonetheless, Tesman is given a parallel life of his own driven by academia and the strong bonds with his aunts while being in thrall to Heddar which Soller conveys really well.

Throughout van Hove creates drama and tension while Marber cleverly plays with metaphors of emptiness and dawning light. The bare apartment and repeated references to whether Hedda is pregnant or not imply an emptiness inside her that cannot be filled, and here An D’Huys costumes puts Hedda initially in a visible silk slip shrouded in a black dressing gown suggesting her suppressed sexuality, but later in the play the dressing gown is removed as the real Hedda emerges – as slippery and thin as her costume. Linked to this is the use of sunlight in the room which Hedda initially reacts badly to and tries to shade, but at the start of part two as her real self emerges the stage is bathed in a bronze sunrise as she flirts heatedly with Brack, and then as events close in around her, she becomes entirely entombed in a dark and falsely lit world.

The National Theatre has hit a purple patch and this version of Hedda Gabler rounds off a fantastic year of shows that, after a lengthy dry spell, has ensured its back at the top of its game. The attraction of visionary directors like Cracknell, Icke and van Hove has given momentum to its programme of new and classic productions that are not just good quality but also innovative and appealing for new audiences. Marber’s translation of Hedda Gabler feels fresh and dangerous, and while the strange decision to use occasional music to underscore Hedda’s depression jars – and is something Wilson manages perfectly well on her own – this memorable production adds one final flourish to a year of great female performances.

Hedda Gabler is at the National Theatre until 21 March 2017. Tickets start at £15 and the show is part of the Friday Rush scheme offering tickets to sold out productions for the following week at £20 –  1pm every Friday. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1

Film Review: Anthropoid – BFI Southbank

History is still too often the story of “great men” and Sean Ellis’s new film Anthropoid, which had its UK premier at BFI Southbank last week, considers whether the removal of a key individual can really change the course of events. It’s an idea we tend to take for granted, certainly in public history, and it’s one that’s used to propel any kind of historical fiction, asking us where we would have been without the Winston Churchills, Henry VIIIs and Nelsons of the world. And of course, as Anthropoid demonstrates, the inverse is true, there are also a series of “bad men” of history whose removal it is supposed would prevent all kinds of disasters, wars and genocides.

As a society, we like to tell stories that suggest progress and these are often driven by quite black and white versions of who the heroes and villains are. But real life is far more complicated than that, and key individuals, whether good or bad, are often at the heart of a large network of activities which will continue to exist without them. At the crux of Anthropoid is a debate about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects of the Nazi final solution, with a reputation so fearsome he earned the soubriquet ‘the butcher of Prague’ and whether removing him would release or further enslave the citizens of Czechoslovakia.

Two soldiers, played by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan, are parachuted into a forest on the outskirts of Prague at the start of the film with orders from the exiled Czech government in London to kill Heydrich. They are met and welcomed into the local underground resistance led by the wonderful Toby Jones, who are initially unaware of their secret mission, but help the men to integrate into Czech society, giving them a family to lodge with, jobs and even fake girlfriends as part of their cover.

There have been a number of poor reviews which largely hinge on the slightly misconceived notion that this a straightforward thriller in the style of Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie, which took a more ‘Mission Impossible’ approach to a botched assassination attempt of Hitler. But while the content and setting of Anthropoid draws obvious comparisons, Sean Ellis – who wrote, directed and acted as cinematographer – is aiming at something slightly different, with the big action scenes serving only to punctuate a taut exploration of a much wider organisation. While the assassination attempt is the film’s core driver, its purpose is to understand the context in which such a plan came about and the emotional and physical costs to the extended network of men and women it affected.

The first hour is entirely concerned with these preparations as Jan (Dornan) and Josef (Murphy) scout locations, secretly photograph Heydrich’s route to work and spy on his daily routine. It is pure character study as the two men begin to come to terms with the task they have to perform. For interest, Ellis has given them contrasting personalities, and during the Q&A that followed last week’s showing, explained that while his background research was extensive, such aspects of character are hard to know which gives the actors plenty of artistic licence.

Murphy’s Josef is the more serious and soldierly of the two, given a direct order that he doesn’t question and leads the scientific process of deciding how and when to strike. He is acutely aware at all times of the dangerous position they’re in, trying to blend into a tightly-wound society while keeping his emotions in check. But there’s also a paternal element to his character which Murphy brings out quite subtly in the protection of the weaker Jan from the full horror of their exposed position and maintain motivation despite objections from other resistance fighters. One point of ambiguity however is the relationship he forms with Lenka (Anna Geislerová) which he initially resists and sees only in terms of fulfilling his cover story. You’re supposed to believe he then falls for her, so as Ellis explained as the film plays out the two leads almost swap character traits, with Josef becoming softer. Some ambiguity is fine, but the idea that he suddenly melts was not entirely convincing, as Murphy’s performance is so restrained it seemed more likely that he respects Lenka for the danger she puts herself in for his sake and sees someone matching his level of sacrifice, but doesn’t actually fall in love with her.

Dornan on the other hand plays a character whose emotions are much closer to the surface and falls quickly in love with Marie (Charlotte Le Bon). Without any back-story, it’s hard to know what previous role Jan had that got him selected for this mission because he responds quite badly to combat pressure, certainly in the first half of the film as his hands shake when he tries to fire, and Josef has to calm him during panic attacks. Dornan does all of this pretty well and audiences will find his warmer character engaging, but it’s a bit hard to believe he would have been chosen for such a specialist and highly significant mission. What is interesting, however, is seeing his confidence grow in the second half of the film as the fall-out from the assassination leads to a siege that separates the two leads, and here Jan demonstrates more considerable military poise, strategy and bravery under pressure than expected.

Ellis is wearing a lot of hats in this production and some fit a little better than others. Given his photography background understandably the cinematography is very striking. Using Super 16mm film it has both a period and punchy feel which adds to the drama of the action scenes while underscoring the more introspective moments. At the Q&A, Ellis talked about recreating shots of Prague from wartime photographs and, because the city has changed, using digital effects to subsequently recreate some of their atmosphere. The linking shots are some of the best seen in a war film with noticeably beautiful images of Prague enveloped in haze and cloud standing out.

It’s clear how much research Ellis has done and this project has taken several years to come to fruition, so the balance of introspective and high action moments actually work quite well. If you don’t go to this expecting a thriller as several critics appear to have, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the intricacies of the wider story. However, while the writing is largely pretty good, it feels overlong because the central assassination takes a while to occur and although the groundwork for that is interesting, it’s in the audiences mind as the main event, so some of the subsidiary stories around the romance and resistance in-fighting feel like distractions.

Most of the other characters are also too thinly drawn to add much to the plot or to create much investment in their cause, with the excellent Toby Jones essentially wasted in a small role as the group leader. There is clearly a huge amount of politics between the on-the-ground resistance and that directed from the relative safety of London, so more suspicion of the two parachutists and their motives for doing this would have added texture, particularly in the first hour rather than focusing on the somewhat dreary love interests.

One of the most interesting aspects of this film is actually seeing the consequences of their actions play out, which links back to this crucial underlying question of whether removing one key person from history really changes anything. The rapid escalation of violence after the assassination, the brutal torture and efficient round-up of the extended network and how this act was utilised to justify further bloody incursions into Czechoslovakia implies that the costs and consequences were far higher than the resistance had prepared for. Try watching this in a double bill with the excellent Conspiracy a BBC film from 2001 with Kenneth Branagh as a chilling Heydrich at the Wannsee Conference and this may alter your perspective. Anthropoid leaves you to decide whether the removal of “bad men” would significantly change the course of history, but it undoubtedly highlights the real bravery and heroism of the small group of people who tried.

Anthropoid was premiered at the BFI Southbank with Q&A. It opens in cinemas nationwide on Friday 9 September. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1

Sunset at the Villa Thalia – National Theatre

Going on holiday with your friends can be a difficult business; how do you cope when some of you want to lay on the beach for five days, while others want to see every historic site / market / cobbled backstreet your destination has to offer. The decision to share your few precious days of relaxation with other people can be the most stressful choice you ever make. Imagine how much more awkward that becomes if you strike up a friendship with people you meet abroad and can’t seem to shake for the rest of your trip. Akin to a holiday romance that goes sour, somehow these people just don’t get the hint and return with you, year after year to the same place.

Alexi Kaye Campbell’s new play Sunset at the Villa Thalia deals with this dilemma but set against the backdrop of Greece’s changing political landscape of the 1960s and 70s. At heart, this is a play about betrayal and how the four main characters undertake acts of treachery partly against each other but primarily against the country they claim to love, its people and ultimately their own middle class notions of propriety. Charlotte and Theo are Brits renting a beautifully positioned but slightly rundown home in Greece. He’s a playwright and she’s an actress, here for the summer where Theo is enjoying a purple patch of creativity. Randomly in town they meet Harvey and June, an American couple with a shady side, she’s a bit of a bimbo, he’s a skilled manipulator, controlling all the events and people around him, but why? In the space of a decade the two couples meet for almost the first and last times, where the clash of morality leads to some uncomfortable self-realisation for the British pair.

The play itself is considerably less heavyweight than its promotion suggests and one that uses the 1967 military coup as a mere backdrop to explore the middle class angst of some holidaying interlopers.  It’s not pure froth by any means and attempts to get to grips with the ways in which external forces have shaped the political, economic and cultural landscape of Greece, but its character-driven focus on the four people onstage (and it only really focuses on two of them properly) means the story of Greece and its people is driven into the background. Don’t be fooled by the serious-looking chronology on their website outlining the 20^th Century history of Greece that implies this play will be a Captain Correlli’s Mandolin for the 70s (the book not the awful film), sadly the context is largely irrelevant and we’re left to draw meaning from the primary interaction of British and American protagonists instead.

This is absolutely Ben Miles’s play and he is having a particularly good run of form at the moment. Many among the theatre community will attest that his Cromwell was the equal of Mark Rylance, and also incredibly challenging given he had to perform both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in rep in Stratford, London and on Broadway, and while the shows themselves were a little lacklustre his performance was reason enough to go. Likewise he stole the show in the recent BBC Hollow Crown series with a devilish turn as Somerset intriguing at the court of Henry VI. Here he plays Harvey the insalubrious American who worms his way into the home and lives of the British couple. He has an undefined government role which gives him inside information on a forthcoming military coup, allowing him to make defining economic decisions for the group. For much of the early play Miles makes him an uncomfortable presence, somewhere between geniality and outright threat, we know he’s not all he seems but nothing about his bonhomie betrays any darker intentions. Is it just the awkwardness of a first meeting or is there something more calculating… the ambiguity is delightful.

In Act One Harvey is a man in total control, drop him into any situation and he will manipulate the players to behave as they should. It is his verve that talks his British hosts into buying the villa after sensing the desperation of the Greek owners who are emigrating to Australia for a better life. And knowing what’s coming, he secures the deal for a fraction of what it should be worth. But Act Two, set 10 years later gives him a chance to reveal a different side. Though not sympathetic, he is someone who thinks carefully about the decisions he’s making and checks their consequences – something the Brits fail to do for all their moralising about fairness and decency. Miles’s Harvey at least is honest about his approach to business and for all Charlotte’s disdain her well-meaning actions turn out to be the most thoughtless of all.

Staying with the Americans, Elizabeth McGovern plays Harvey’s wife June, essentially a bimbo who is the trophy by his side. Both spouses are chronically underwritten so we never really understand what attracts the sweet but rather empty-headed June to her secretive husband. And I have to confess to being somewhat perplexed by the casting of McGovern in this role. She’s a fine actress and does her best with it but throughout she betrays a greater intelligence than the character should actually have, one that ultimately makes no sense given her lack of decisive action at any point. McGovern’s June is likeable, sweet and later emits an interesting fear of her husband, but the underlying sense of intelligence McGovern brings to all her characters doesn’t quite accord with June’s actions or her decision to remain wilfully in the dark about Harvey’s true nature.

The British couple are equally frustrating; Pippa Nixon’s Charlotte is the moral guardian of the piece and its sensible centre. More than any other character, she oozes middle class respectability and guilt, showing great deference to the Greek owners of the house she’s renting, while openly watchful of Harvey’s threat to her own comfortable world. The text references an attraction between Harvey and Charlotte which doesn’t really exist in performance, but the scenes between Nixon and Miles as they battle for supremacy and the last word are the best in the production. What is frustrating about her as a character is that she feels like a cipher for the playwright’s own views on the external exploitation of Greece a lot of the time, but despite her evident mistrust of Harvey is very easily talked into buying the Villa Thalia without proper consideration. There is also a prissiness to her that makes her difficult to empathise with in Act Two, so when she’s forced to realise her less than blameless conduct it’s surprisingly satisfying to see her brought down a peg or two.

Her husband Theo (Sam Crane) has pretty much nothing to do apart from set the context for the couple being in Greece – for the creative inspiration – and to be the driving force behind buying the cheap house. Like June, Theo’s character needs more meat, particularly given the supposed attraction between his wife and Harvey which never comes between them, while the two Greek characters, a father and daughter, are little more than pen portraits of people in need, torn between a new life and preserving their historic legacy. Act Two also has two children who have little importance to the plot but the decision to give a pre-pubescent actress a bikini and put her stage brother in small trunks is a controversial and uncomfortable one. Neither of the adult women wears just a bikini and the men reveal no flesh at all, so having the children do it is unnecessary – it would be easy enough to imply swimming in other ways.

Sunset at the Villa Thalia is not an awful show by any means, and in many ways it’s an enjoyable night at the theatre. There’s nothing wrong with a lightweight play that tells a story about the drama between two sets of semi-strangers and offers some enjoyable performances, not least from Miles. But it doesn’t address the issues it claims to, and could have had considerably more depth by better situating the plot in the turbulence of recent Greek history, and by properly fleshing out the characterisation of the secondary players. Campbell’s play may make you think twice before befriending seemingly charming strangers abroad, but it’s not going to teach you much about modern Europe.

Sunset at the Villa Thalia is at the National Theatre until 4 August and tickets start at £15. It’s also part of the National’s Friday Rush promotion releasing £20 tickets for the week ahead at 1pm.

The Deep Blue Sea – National Theatre

Sometimes an actor and a part make perfect sense, and you know in advance that the production you’re about to see is going to be pretty special. It’s different to the thrill of seeing a favourite or particularly famous actor treading the boards; instead it’s the knowledge that the role will particularly suit the specific skills, experience and style of the performer. The announcement then that Helen McCrory was to play Hester Collyer in Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea made perfect sense and may well be her finest stage performance.

McCrory is probably best known (outside the theatre) for her more outlandish roles playing dangerously eccentric characters such as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, while her Medea for the National a couple of years ago was a ball of anger and vengeance. Yet it was a tiny role as a grieving widow in the film version of Ian McEwen’s Enduring Love, opposite a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, which really highlighted her ability to convey conflicted despair – a performance that made her perfect casting as Rattigan’s deeply troubled heroine.

The Deep Blue Sea is Rattigan’s most personal and emotionally charged play, based on the death of his former lover Kenny Morgan who gassed himself in a tiny boarding house in Camden Town after being thrown over by his current partner. A version of this true story was recently performed at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston which used Rattigan’s play as a template without quite matching the emotional pitch of the fictional version.

The Deep Blue Sea opens with Hester Collyer found alive in her flat by her landlady and a neighbour having failed to kill herself when the meter ran out of gas. It’s the 1950s when suicide was a crime and the discovery puts everyone in a difficult moral position. Hester is troubled by the dying embers of a passionate relationship with her younger lover Freddie Page, a former fighter pilot who she met when golfing with her husband Sir William Collyer, a High Court Judge. A well-meaning lodger calls her husband and in the course of twenty-four hours Hester must confront both the men in her life, the overwhelming feelings of love she cannot control, as well as her own belief that life is not worth continuing.

Hester is a sympathetic but not entirely likeable woman who seems to make quite rational and calm decisions about significant matters while simultaneously unable to overcome the feeling she has for Freddie, a feeling they both know he does not return to the same degree. It can be difficult then for an audience to understand a woman who seems so rational and yet so entirely unable to master her own feelings. Yet McCrory makes Hester’s predicament deeply affecting and entirely believable. She begins in an emotionally turbulent state having just tried to commit suicide and as soon as McCrory appears on stage the tension ramps up instantly. It’s not an easy place for an actress to begin, but McCrory is superb allowing Hester to dismiss her actions with curtly polite thanks to all involved – a constant struggle between the expected propriety of her actions and the unquellable depth of her feelings.

And McCrory’s Hester feels deeply, yet retains an inner steel. We see her as both a fragile creature unable to imagine a life without the strong feeling she has experienced with Freddie – the audience may believe as the other characters do that it is only an infatuation but Hester believes it is more than that – yet when offered an escape by her former husband, she is able to rationalise her decision to give up her life to it. “Love is what happened to me” she says and because of it she is no longer the same woman she was in her marriage to Sir William and quite decently feels she could not pretend to love her husband again for all the material comfort it may bring her. McCrory’s fiery passion for Freddie that so often becomes histrionic as she begs him to stay with her is painful to watch and throughout you have the sense she is a dead woman walking, that without him she will allow herself to crumble. It’s a real tour de force performance that is one of the finest things you’ll see on the London stage this year.

Tom Burke’s Freddie may initially seem to be the villain of the piece who has destroyed this woman’s life for a brief physical passion. Yet Rattigan gives us a far more complex character, loading Freddie’s backstory with notions of a post-war world he cannot exist in – “His life stopped in 1940” Hester says and the dull peace after the intensity of combat is something so many men found difficult to adjust to. The failure of the relationship is no more the fault of Freddie than it is of Hester as both are driven by deep character traits that always doomed their 10-month romance. He openly admits he is not someone who can feel as deeply as Hester can and considers himself broken. Although he cares for her more than any other woman he’s ever known, it doesn’t begin to equal her passion for him which ultimately drives them apart. Tom Burke is a superb Freddie, offering moments of callous disgust for Hester’s selfish suicide attempt that would have left him with a lifetime of guilt, with a level of self-realisation that engenders considerable sympathy. Their mutual passion is clear and the chemistry between the two leads if palpable, yet Freddie refuses to let himself be governed by it as Hester does and is always the one to instantly shut down her caresses which Burke suggests are futile now they both know it’s over. It’s again a powerful performance that retains sympathy for Freddie’s motives despite the pain he causes and we see it costs him a great deal to break it off but knows that logic must rule emotion.

There’s no less tension in the duologues between Hester and her husband which have the easy interaction of two people long involved with one another. Peter Sullivan as Sir William initially remains a little aloof seeming neither surprised nor overly concerned by Hester’s actions but it’s abundantly clear in Sullivan’s heartfelt performance that considerable love still exists for his wife and his distance is a protection against further hurt as well as a badge of his class and age. Their talk of old acquaintances he thinks is a way to lure her back, while for her they’re just amusing memories of a life Hester no longer requires. William represents for her a form of salvation she refuses to take where a return to married life would be a betrayal of herself, of the sexuality she has discovered with Freddie and a life of stifled pretending that she won’t renew.

The National has a great reputation when it comes to Rattigan and a production of After the Dance in 2010 was one its biggest success of the last decade – the lead played by a pre-Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch in what remains, in my view, his finest stage role. Here director Carrie Cracknell has created a tense and emotionally wrought atmosphere that ebbs and flows like the tide, and perfectly pitched throughout, while Tom Scutt’s beautiful semi-sheer design in shades of sea bluey-green allows you to see the lives happening beyond the walls of Hester’s flat giving context to her own somewhat self-indulgent struggle and the many other people just getting on with it. This is not quite the shabby lodging house of other versions, but a small and tasteful place which reinforces Hester’s slight snobbery – it’s not pure poverty to us but to her is a few degrees below the comfort she enjoyed with Sir William.

This production of The Deep Blue Sea is the best thing the National has done in years and a wonderful piece of theatre – it’s intense, consuming and deeply moving. Helen McCrory’s astonishing central performance is an impeccable piece of casting and a role that suits her skills perfectly. Her Hester is simultaneously sympathetic, pitiable, frustrating, fragile and strong, and if you’re not blinking back the tears by the end of this devastating performance then you have a harder heart than me. Rattigan has been given a new lease of life since the centenary celebrations in 2011 and in this beautiful production we are reminded just why he remains such a wonderful playwright and how sublime theatre can be when a talented actor meets the perfect part.

The Deep Blue Sea is at The National Theatre until 21 September and tickets start at £15. The production also features in the National’s 1pm Friday Rush scheme selling tickets for £20. There will be an NT Live Screening of this production on 1 September in local cinemas.