The Quiet Girl (An Cailin Ciuin)

18/02/23

Amazon Prime

Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (An Cailin Ciuin), based on a short story by Claire Keegan, is a beautiful film, as intense as it is languorous. It’s a simple story, elegantly told. The titular girl is Cáit (Catherine Clinch), and she’s quiet in many ways: tongue-tied, illiterate, watchful, an outsider. When we first see her, she’s hiding – in a field and then under her bed. She seems choked with secrets and longing, simultaneously yearning to be seen and to disappear.

Her home life is one of poverty and neglect. The house is full of children, and there’s another on the way. Her Mam (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) is exhausted; her Da (Michael Patric) is a wastrel, gambling their meagre income and failing to do any work. He spends his time, predictably, with other women or in the pub, and Cáit’s mistrust of him is palpable. Is he abusive in other ways?

The kids at school call Cáit a weirdo, so it’s no surprise she wants to run away. And it’s no surprise to us that Mam can’t cope, and packs her off to spend the summer with some distant relatives – although it’s certainly a shock to Cáit, who isn’t told anything about where she’s going, before being bundled into Da’s car.

But her banishment proves her salvation, and – under Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) and Seán (Andrew Bennett)’s gentle care and tutelage – Cáit blossoms. The healing is a two-way process: these stand-in grandparents have their own sorrow, evident in the carefully preserved child’s bedroom Cáit sleeps in, with its train wallpaper and wardrobe full of ‘just the right size’ clothes. Bairéad captures the sense of endlessness that comes with the long school holidays, while cinematographer Kate McCullough bathes the Irish countryside in a golden glow, making this month of respite seem like a whole new life.

There’s a raft of narratives out there that plumb the same notion: a single summer that shapes a person’s life – Willy Russell’s One Summer, Noel Streatfeild’s The Growing Summer, Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, to name but a few (in fact, Heidi features as a bedtime story here, although – of course – her tale is the reverse of Cáit’s). But this Irish-language film stands out, perhaps because of Clinch’s heartbreaking performance – you can almost feel her aching with loneliness and love. Despite the overt simplicity of the tale, there’s a lot to uncover.

With an Oscar nomination for best international feature, The Quiet Girl seems destined to make a lot of noise.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield

Moonset

16/02/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

A school trip to the Paisley Witches’ Memorial proves momentous in Moonset, Maryam Hamidi’s spirited play about four teenage girls, who just need a little bit of power…

It’s a great premise. Surely the worst thing about being an adolescent is the lack of autonomy. There’s so much to deal with (exams, hormones, growing up, life), so much conflicting advice, so many rules and boundaries and exhortations to “be good”.

Roxy (Layla Kirk) feels like she’s on fire. Her best friend, Bushra, seems to be cooling on her, her mum (Zahra Browne) is concealing something, Nat 5s are looming – and why hasn’t she started her period yet? But Bushra (Cindy Awor) has her own problem – she has questions about her sexuality, and the answers seem scary. Meanwhile, Gina (Leah Byrne) is a ball of restless energy, bouncing from one calamity to another, and Joanne (Hannah Visocchi) isn’t sure her boyfriend, Gary, is quite the guy she’d like him to be.

They all feel powerless. And, like Abigail Williams and her friends before them, the girls seek strength in magic.

The teens’ exuberance is funny and engaging, but it doesn’t conceal the real problems they have to deal with. Hamidi’s bright, lively script grapples with dark themes – touching on coercive control, child abuse, immigration and cancer – treading this fine line with confidence. Director Joanna Bowman nimbly encapsulates the emotional turbulence of the formative years; she doesn’t hold back. We watch as the girls take terrible risks; they are as reckless and bold as only adolescents can be. And we’re on the roller-coaster with them, hoping against hope that the consequences of their actions won’t prove too appalling…

The set (by Jen McGinley) is a jumble, like the kids’ minds, with myriad items competing for attention. It works well, the empty circle in the middle representing their safe space: the junk yard, ironically, is the one place with nothing filling it, offering them room to think, to cement their friendship and ultimately find their hidden strengths. There are some pretty nifty effects too. I like the way the fire is created with smoke and light (courtesy of Simon Hayes). Movement director Vicki Manderson deserves a mention too: this is a kinetic piece and the momentum never flags, the performers interacting seamlessly with the space.

The set-up works well, leaving me scared for the girls and their futures. No spoilers here – suffice to say that, after the coup de théâtre at the end of the first act, the second provides a pay-off that is unexpected but satisfying. Although I’m crying as the lights go down, I’m also left with a feeling of hope.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Women Talking

15/02/23

The Cameo, Edinburgh

Sarah Polley’s Women Talking is an unusual film, in that it really is all in the words. It’s a film to listen to, rather than a film to watch. Based on the novel by Miriam Toews, itself based on a true story, it is billed as an ‘imagined response to real events’. This is, to my mind, both its strength and its weakness.

The real events are shocking: in Bolivia, between 2005 and 2009, more than a hundred girls and women were drugged and raped by the men in their Mennonite community. They were knocked out with cattle tranquillisers so that, when they woke up – bruised and bloody, pregnant and diseased – they didn’t really know what had happened, although terrifying fragments of memory sometimes surfaced. The men offered various explanations: they had been visited by ghosts or the devil; they were lying; they were hysterical. Eventually, two men were caught in the act; they gave other names, and eight were gaoled.

To their credit, neither the book nor the film dwell on the violence. We’ve all seen too many women brutalised on screen. Instead, they deal with the imagined aftermath. The story is moved to Canada; the collective victims ascribed characters and backstories. Rooney Mara is Ona, pregnant, but still radiating love. Clare Foy is Salome, with vengeance in her heart. Jessie Buckley is Mariche, minded to stay and try to forgive, because that’s what God decrees and she doesn’t want to be damned. All of the community’s men have gone to the city to post bail for the two who have been arrested, meaning that the women have forty-eight hours to make a decision. Do they stay and forgive? Stay and fight? Or leave, and start again?

There’s an attempt here at generating tension: the forty-eight hour deadline; the possibility that the women might be too timid to either fight or leave. But, in truth, this doesn’t really work. Who could doubt that these articulate, confident women would show their mettle when it came to it, that they wouldn’t do their utmost to protect their daughters?

The conversation is fascinating, incorporating far-reaching and nuanced questions about power, education, complicity and the role of an ally. I’m engrossed in the arguments. However, I can’t pretend I wouldn’t like a bit more dramatic drive, a bit more of a traditional story arc. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel this way if these were real testimonies – a verbatim piece would have more heft – but, as it’s fiction, I feel it’s asking a lot of an audience to sit through a film that could just as easily be a podcast or a radio play.

I’m glad that Polley has moved away from the book’s male narrator, August (Ben Whishaw), justified by Toews because women and girls in the Molotschna colony don’t learn to read or write. Given the subject matter, it seems like a no-brainer to silence him, so that he’s just the transcriber, and the story we hear is not filtered through a man’s perspective.

Despite my quibbles, there’s no doubting that these are strong, nuanced performances, imbued with dignity and pain, nor that the women talking need to be heard. It’s an important film. Just not, to my mind, an especially good one.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

15/02/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Marcel is an unlikely star. He began his film career in a short clip on YouTube in 2010 and, over the next few years, starred in two more brief adventures. These subsequently went viral and were viewed by over 50 million people. A feature film was a possibility, but could something created on a whim have sufficient clout to sustain a running time of one and a half hours? On the evidence of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, the answer to that is a resounding ‘yes!’

Marcel seems to have been inspired by one of those weird little items you’ll sometimes encounter at the bottom of a long-forgotten drawer. You don’t remember where you got him or even why you hung onto him for so long – maybe you had a vague notion that he might come in useful one day? Created by Dean Fleischer Camp and endearingly voiced by Jenny Slate, Marcel is the cutest one-eyed shell with doll’s feet you’re ever likely to encounter. He can talk! He can sing! He can even knock out a mean version of Amazing Grace, using a piece of pasta as a trumpet. He lives in an Airbnb with his nanna, Connie (Isabella Rossellini), and he misses the other members of his family, who were inadvertently swept into a suitcase when the apartment’s previous occupants went their separate ways.

Now Marcel and Connie have a visitor called Dean (Fleischer Camp), a filmmaker who has decided to capture the duo’s antics on camera and who, in a move that echoes Marcel’s origins, decides to post the resulting footage online…

If this sounds like an unpromising concept, don’t be misled. Marcel is a delightful creation, who easily charms his way into my affections without ever being over sentimental. It’s hard to pin down his appeal in words, but pretty much everything he says makes me warm to him, whether he’s explaining his daily routines, demonstrating one of his Heath Robinson-like inventions or merely interacting with Connie. The screenplay, written by Fleischer Camp, Slate and Nick Paley, is beautifully nuanced, which means that – while younger viewers can simply enjoy the jokes and the lo-fi stop frame animation – more mature audiences will appreciate the more serious topics, like dementia and bereavement.

When Marcel wonders if his online followers might be able to help him locate the missing members of his family, the film cranks up a gear, drawing in real life TV personalities like Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes, and even chat show titan Conan O’ Brien, who are clearly as impressed by Marcel as the rest of us. Utterly goofy and totally irresistible, MTSWSO has one other plus point worth mentioning: the various trailers for the movie utilise material that you won’t find in the actual feature. Trust me, I see a lot of trailers and this makes a refreshing change.

This film has, of course, been Oscar-nominated and – while I personally believe that Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio truly deserves to lift the ‘best animation’ gong – I won’t be totally surprised if a one-eyed shell beats everyone’s expectations. Whatever happens, this is a must-see.

But be warned: all but the most cynical will be in serious danger of falling head-over-heels for Marcel’s considerable charms.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Blue Jean

14/02/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s hard to remember sometimes, from our current vantage point, just how deeply ingrained homophobia was in 1980s Britain. Writer/director Georgia Oakley’s debut film takes us back to 1988, and the implementation of Margaret Thatcher’s controversial Clause 28, which explicitly banned schools and local authorities from ‘promoting’ homosexuality. I was in sixth form then, and I mostly remember finding it ridiculous – as if, without the clause, there would be advertisements everywhere. “Come on, kids! Be gay! It’s great!” But I only had the luxury of dismissing it as stupid because I was straight. I don’t know how it made the gay kids feel. I didn’t know anyone who said they were gay back then (although, of course, many have come out since). I don’t blame them for keeping schtum. I don’t remember the schoolyard as a place that celebrated difference.

Jean (Rosy McEwen) is a PE teacher. She’s also a lesbian, recently divorced from her husband, and enjoying a new relationship with Viv (Kerrie Hayes). But while Viv is at ease with herself – out and proud and politically engaged – Jean is less confident about her sexual identity. She’s still keen to fit in with the heteronormative world; she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself, either at school or with her family. It’s a matter of survival: however shocking it may seem, she’s right to fear her that job is on the line. She manages by drawing a clear distinction between work and home: she lives in a different town from the one she teaches in, and refuses drinks invitations from her colleagues. Her social life revolves around a gay club and a lesbian commune, and here she’s free to be herself.

Until fifteen-year-old Lois (Lucy Halliday) shows up in the club. She’s belligerent and bold – and she’s also Jean’s student. Suddenly, Jean’s worlds collide. Her carefully segregated life is under threat, and she’s torn between fight or flight.

Oakley’s script gives us a clear insight into the era, and into the overt discrimination that permeated popular culture. McEwen shows us a young woman forced into a choice she doesn’t want to make: she has to be a hero or a failure; she can’t just be; the government’s weird preoccupation with consenting adults’ sex lives has a profound impact on real people. Hayes is heartbreaking as Viv, whose clear-eyed view never dulls her pain, and newcomer Halliday is mesmerising on the screen.

Clause 28 was finally repealed in 2003, and things have certainly improved – although, of course, there’s still a way to go. Blue Jean serves as an important reminder of why we can’t ever relax our vigilance, and why we mustn’t let things slide. People’s lives and happiness depend on it.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

EO

14/02/23

The Cameo, Edinburgh

Veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski has certainly been around the block. I first became aware of him as co-writer of Roman Polanski’s debut feature Knife in the Water in 1962. (It was later remade by Hollywood as Dead Calm.) I also remember seeing his early directorial feature Deep End in 1970 – and being quietly blown away by it. 

Over the years, the man occasionally resurfaces with something entirely unexpected. Most recently, he’s been glimpsed as an actor in – of all things –  Avengers Assemble. But few could have foreseen that a man in his mid-80s would come up with something as radically different and downright captivating as EO. This powerful, episodic – and ultimately tragic – tale centres on the adventures of… a donkey. That title also serves as the name of its lead character, a reference to the braying sounds he occasionally makes, sometimes with calamitous results. Co-written by Skolimowski and his partner, Ewa Piaskowska, this is an extraordinarily accomplished film, the work of a director at the height of his powers.

When we first meet Eo, he’s working in a small travelling circus somewhere in Poland, where he performs alongside Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), who clearly adores the very sawdust on which he treads. But when the circus is besieged by angry animal rights supporters, Eo, along with his fellow circus animals, is led into a truck and driven away. He soon finds himself sequestered in a fancy stable, alongside a collection of thoroughbred horses, but – while they are spoiled and pampered by their human keepers – he is required to pull a cart and perform menial tasks. And his dreams are haunted by images of Kasandra and those nightly circus performances.

After an unfortunate accident involving a trophy cabinet, Eo is sent away to a petting farm where he is required to interact with groups of children and it’s here that he seems to have the best opportunity to thrive. But, after a brief visit from a drunken Kasandra, Eo escapes from his enclosure and wanders away in search of her. The resulting quest takes him through a whole series of misadventures. Michal Dymek’s stunning cinematography captures some truly astonishing sequences, while Pawel Mykietyn’s eerie score provides a ravishing accompaniment. 

On his journey Eo encounters humanity in all its forms and he’s not always treated gently – a scene where he is brutally attacked by drunken football supporters will linger long after the credits have rolled. 

Throughout everything, Eo’s placid composure somehow sets him apart from the humans with whom he’s obliged to interact. Lingering closeups of his gentle eyes are particularly affecting and the unlikely central role (performed, it turns out, by six different donkeys) is brilliantly realised. The true strength of the story is that it’s nearly all observed from Eo’s point of view – indeed, the two scenes where it diverges from that conceit feel strangely intrusive and are the only reason why this film doesn’t attain a perfect five stars. 

As EO trots trustingly towards a truly heartrending conclusion, I’m increasingly compelled to consider humanity’s inherent cruelty towards the other creatures who share the planet, and who surely deserve a better fate than the one that’s meted out here. EO is a little masterpiece, and if you can manage to track it down on a big screen, so much the better.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)

11/02/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) is billed as ‘a love story – but not a typical one’. And yet this play, by Ramesh Meyyappan is, like all tales of love and loss, at once unique and ubiquitous, quirky and commonplace.

We meet Harry (Meyyappan) as he moves into a care home. He has dementia, and he’s also deaf. His new carer, May (Elicia Daly), is sweet and attentive, but she doesn’t know sign language, although she is ‘going on a course’. Naturally, Harry’s disorientation is heightened by the pair’s inability to communicate. Matthew Lenton’s skilful direction ensures the audience is drawn in, as those of us who can’t sign miss much of what Harry says, while some of those who are deaf presumably miss May’s words. It’s nicely done: we’re all given enough information to understand what’s going on, while also experiencing a little of Harry’s alienation from his new home, and May’s frustration at not being able to do her job.

The set (by Becky Minto) comprises three moveable screens. At first these are mirrors, magnifying Harry’s discomfort: the reflection of the audience staring at him adds to the sense that he no longer has a private life, or much autonomy at all. Cleverly, the screens are also transparent: lit from behind, they reveal Harry’s jumble of memories. We get to know the young Harry (Rinkoo Barpaga) and his true love, Elise (Amy Kennedy): we see them meet and fall in love; we see their joy and their sorrow, their prime and their decline. There’s something spellbinding about the way these images appear and disappear, and Harry’s yearning for Elise is palpable and heartbreaking.

The strength of this piece lies in the movement, which is precise, slow and beguiling – a realisation of the phrase ‘poetry in motion’. There is a gentle earnestness here that defies cynicism, so that a simple swimming mime becomes a thing of beauty; the act of putting on slippers becomes profound.

Composer David Paul Jones’s soundtrack is integral to the piece. The music is by turns melodic and jarring, light and intense, reflecting Harry’s inner turmoil just as clearly as the mirrors.

This year’s Manipulate Festival has thrown up some absolute gems – and this is one of them.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Whale

11/02/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Charlie (Brendan Fraser) is rapidly approaching the end of his life. Since the death of his partner, Adam, he has allowed his health to decline. Inanimate, a binge eater and a housebound recluse, he now weighs in at over 600 pounds and, as his friend, Liz (Hong Chau), repeatedly tells him, if he doesn’t get himself to a hospital he will, inevitably, suffer a massive heart attack. But Charlie has no health insurance and insists on working at every opportunity, teaching English Literature online – though he pretends that the camera on his computer is broken so his students cannot see him.

But Charlie still has one burning ambition, – to reconnect with his estranged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), whom he abandoned when she was eight years old. It’s not going to be easy, because she is hostile to his approaches, blaming him for the fact that her mother, Mary (Samantha Morton), is a heavy drinker and still very much a loner. Into this scenario wanders Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a young missionary, seeking to give Charlie some spiritual help – but mostly looking for his own salvation.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky with a screenplay by Samuel D Hunter (based on his stage play), The Whale was filmed during lockdown, and (very fittingly) feels trapped by its stage origins, confining itself almost completely to Charlie’s dark and claustrophobic apartment. It’s been accused by some as an exercise in fat-shaming, though this seems unfair: Charlie is an engaging and complex character, dealing with grief and addiction. Fraser wears convincing prosthetics, created by a whole team of artists, which serve to illuminate the almost cartoonish grotesquery of his size, while still making us empathise with his plight.

There’s no doubting the power of Fraser’s Oscar-nominated performance in the central role, fuelled to some degree, I think, by his own punishing experiences in the movie industry. In fact, all of the performances here are skilled, particularly Sink’s incandescent turn as an anger-fuelled teenager, determined to exact her revenge on just about everyone she encounters. The scene where Charlie has to offer to pay her to visit him is particularly tragic.

If I’m honest, I think there are better, more nuanced films in this year’s Oscar contenders, but I won’t be at all surprised if Fraser gets the nod for best actor. His performance here is exemplary, and The Whale is a powerful and affecting drama.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Fantastic Life of Minnie Rubinski

09/02/23

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Vision Mechanic’s production of The Fantastic Life of Minnie Rubinski was conceived during the pandemic and is inspired by creative director Kim Bergsagel’s mother (real name Sondra Rubin). Part movie, part installation and part puppet-show, it’s an affecting look into the memories and changing fortunes of one woman’s life.

Entering the performance space, we find ourselves in a darkened room dominated by a central ‘brain,’ a little shelter where we are invited to sit awhile and listen to the recorded sounds of a jumble of voices and musical cues. From there, we can follow one of a number of illuminated ‘synapses’ to a whole series of screens showing vignettes of key incidents from Minnie’s life. The characters are puppets, moving around custom-built sets, which are presented in intricate detail – check out the sequence in a 1950s supermarket and take a close look at the hundreds of items ranged on the shelves. The attention to detail is astonishing!

The scenes we are offered range from charming glimpses of Minnie’s childhood, to the years of her unfulfilling marriage, her time spent running a swish art gallery and latterly, her final days in a care home as she increasingly descends into dementia. It’s in these latter stretches that some of her adventures become particularly bizarre and the lines between memories and hallucinations are allowed to blur. We can choose to watch the sequences chronologically or simply go to whichever screen is vacant at any given time and piece everything together from what’s onscreen. (I really recommend this approach. It’s oddly like playing detective and the storyline is so skilfully handled, it never becomes confusing.)

Of course, a production like this isn’t the work of one person, but of a whole team of creative artists – puppet makers, set dressers, musicians, you name it – and their splendid endeavours are up there on the screens for all to see, as they pool their diverse talents to create a charming and fascinating narrative. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.

Interested parties should make a beeline for the Fruitmarket Gallery, because this delightful production, showing as part of the Manipulate Festival, is only available to view until Sunday 12th February. Go and spend forty-five minutes in Minnie’s extraordinary world. It’ll be time well spent.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Macbeth (An Undoing)

08/02/23

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Unlike the monarchs he wrote about, Shakespeare has reigned supreme for more than four hundred years: his plays, rich with examples of human fallibility, are endlessly relevant. But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that we’d run out of different ways to retell the same stories? I mean, the first time I ever saw Macbeth, way-back-when on a sixth-form theatre trip, it was set in a concentration camp (courtesy of Braham Murray at Manchester’s Royal Exchange). Next, I fell in love with Penny Woolcock’s 1997 film, Macbeth on the Estate, which transported the action to a maze of contemporary council flats, and I even enjoyed TV’s ShakespeaRe-Told, where chefs James McEvoy and Keeley Hawes killed off their rivals to take over a restaurant empire. More recently, Flabbergast Theatre’s wonderfully physical, visceral adaptation had me hooked, and there’s been a slew of others along the way. What I’m saying is: I know Macbeth. We all know Macbeth. It’s been done, right? What else is there to say?

And then along comes Zinnie Harris with An Undoing – and the whole thing is turned on its head.

Macbeth (An Undoing) starts from a simple premise: what happens if Macbeth and Lady Macbeth follow their natural trajectories? Because, let’s face it, although Lady M is arguably the best of Shakespeare’s female characters, she’s also the most frustrating, initially a force to be reckoned with – an interesting, complex woman – before disappearing for an age and then returning broken, for a brief goodbye, with very little to tell us why. What if, asks Harris, it’s Macbeth who crumbles? What if it’s Macbeth – whose conscience troubles him from the start – who unravels, while his wife continues unabashed, for a while at least, determined to make their plan succeed? It makes perfect sense, given their starting points.

At first, when the curtains open on a blank stage, and we’re treated to servant/witch Carlin (Liz Kettle)’s fourth-wall-breaking opening gambit, I think perhaps this will be a relatively straightforward version of the play, with just a little mischievous tinkering here and there. After all, “This story will be told, the way it has always been told. What use is it otherwise? The hags on the heath. The woman who went mad. The man who became a tyrant,” she tells us. And, for the first half, that’s sort of what we get: Macbeth at a gallop, mostly in the Bard’s own words, step-by-step through the plot. There are a few changes: we’re in the 1920s, or the early 1930s perhaps; Ladies Macbeth and Macduff (Nicole Cooper and Jade Ogugua respectively) are reimagined as sisters, and share some revelatory new scenes (An Undoing easily passes the Bechdel test); Lady Macbeth and her husband (Adam Best) don’t just want power for power’s sake – they have a meticulously-planned vision for a utopian Scotland. But, in the main, it’s as it’s always been, so that, in the interval, I find myself musing aloud, “How can there still be an hour and a bit to go? There’s not much story left…”

But then we get to the undoing…

Harris’s adaptation is bold, daring and witty. I love the idea of the witches as servants: it makes perfect sense. They’re the eyes and ears of the house, privy to the paperwork the Macbeths have drawn up, witness to intimate moments and careless asides. Invisible. Ignored. These witches are also a family – in fact, Kettle and Star Penders, along with impressive young actor Farrah Anderson Fryer, form the most functional family we see on tonight’s stage, with clear bonds uniting them. I also like the depiction of Malcolm (Penders again) as a petulant youth, patently ill-equipped for leadership and ripe for exploitation by the ruthless Macduff (Paul Tinto).

But this is, without doubt, Lady Macbeth’s play. It’s the part of a lifetime, and Cooper makes the most of it, imbuing her with strength and vitality – and just a hint of vulnerability. She’s ambitious and single-minded, but never merely cruel or heartless. We believe in her love for her husband and sister, and we believe in her idealism too. She’s angry when the lairds misgender her, referring to her as the King because they can’t conceive of a woman behaving as she does (even though, to be fair, she does ask to be ‘unsexed’). In a well-aimed swipe at other interpretations of the role, she’s also angry at being reduced to her infertility.

The set (by Tom Piper) is simple but extraordinarily effective, with warped mirrors concealing as much as they reveal, offering us multiple perspectives, and highlighting the Macbeths’ interdependence and duality. We’re there too, shimmering in the background, complicit and agog, just as Carlin accuses at the start.

The Lyceum is busy tonight – some of the boxes have even been pressed into use – and deserves to be so for the next month. You’ve probably seen Macbeth, but I doubt you’ve seen anything quite like An Undoing before.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield