Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James star in Penelope Skinner’s searingly funny and passionate new play, directed by Ian Rickson.
Elaine (Kristin Scott Thomas) a reclusive and talented actress, disappears in mysterious circumstances. 30 years later, she finally feels ready to tell her story – summoning Kate, a young film executive (Lily James), to her remote Cornish home to assist with her glorious comeback.
But who really controls the stories we tell, and how we get to tell them? Will these women own their narrative, or will it be swept away from them at any given moment?
A story for our times, playing for a strictly limited season from 17 Oct – 23 Dec at the Harold Pinter Theatre.
__Assisted Performances__
Captioned - 18th November 2.30pm
Audio-Described - 30th November, 7.30pm
BSL Interpreted - TBC
Scott Thomas is superb, commanding the space with her presence and her widening eyes, at once mischievous and determined. This is a woman who takes on the sea in a daily swim, calming her mind in a battle against the waves; you feel the power of her decisions as well as her sadness. With her battered glamour and slightly crazed ferocity, she conveys both the sense of a woman taking one last chance to break out of a trap that her stalker has made – and the terrible sadness of a life wasted. “What if I am no longer spellbinding?” she asks, fingering her yellowing, old reviews.
Very occasionally, a play comes along that is so weirdly inept that you don’t quite know how to respond. If you were to stumble across Penelope Skinner’s new drama in a thinly populated corner of the Edinburgh Fringe, you would put it down as an undergrad experiment. To find it in the West End, with Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily James in the lead roles, is bizarre.
2023 | West End |
West End |
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