Theatre review: The Deep Blue Sea

Quite a major case of déjà vu for me tonight, as although Carrie Cracknell's production for the National is the first time I've seen Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, it was only two weeks ago that I saw Kenny Morgan, based on the true events that inspired it. And as it turns out, Mike Poulton's play had followed Rattigan's template very closely. The Deep Blue Sea opens with Hester Collyer (Helen McCrory) lying unconscious in front of her gas fire, having attempted suicide. Her neighbour Philip (Hubert Burton) smells the gas, and with the help of landlady Mrs Elton (Marion Bailey) gets into the flat and revives her. This scandal causes another one to be revealed: The man she lives with, and who everyone assumed was Hester's husband, is in fact her lover, and she's actually still married to someone else.

Theatre review: Medea

Among the many current discussions about jobs and representation for women on stage, one question that often comes up is what constitutes a "strong female role." I would have thought it obviously meant "a strong role, but for a woman," but if Hollywood thinks it means a woman who punches people, others seem to confuse strong roles with positive ones. But the title role in Euripides' Medea is undoubtedly a strong role, while far from anyone's idea of a heroine; and Helen McCrory doesn't make the mistake of trying to make her one as she takes it on. Medea helped Jason steal the golden fleece from her family, and they married and fled to Corinth. Some years later, their fortunes faded, Jason (Danny Sapani) leaves Medea and their two sons to marry Kreusa (Clemmie Sveaas,) the daughter of King Kreon (Martin Turner.)

Theatre review: The Last of the Haussmans

Old hippie Judy Haussman (Julie Walters) has just had a cancer scare, and Social Services have warned they're not happy with the state her house is in. Her children return to the cluttered Devon home they grew up in, but highly-strung daughter Libby (Helen McCrory) is convinced Judy has an ulterior motive: To get them to tidy up the house so she can sell it and deny them their inheritance. With its look at how a generation who said they were trying to save the world actually left it in a worse state for their children, Stephen Beresford's play The Last of the Haussmans shares some similarities with Love, Love, Love, whose final act also saw a family reunite at a Devon house in the summer. Fortunately this establishes its own identity, and ultimately a very different core of characters with their own dynamic.