Quarantine Theatre: National Theatre at Home: The Deep Blue Sea

The cast pull the language of this 1950's set drama into raw emotion. The main character is torn between her privileged husband who loves her and offers her an easy life, but whom she doesn't really love, and a younger Musketeer pilot who can't love her as she loves him, and seems to be constantly on the make. The main character is quite annoying at times because she only seems to have the choice of not very kind guy or dull but loaded and socially decent guy. Ditch them both and go for the nice fake doctor, or go to art college as a mature student! Her only other choice is suicide.

A pre-bedsit dingy bedsit drama: the way it's played here, it seems a forerunner of all the angsty, angry young men and kitchen sink dramas of the 1960's. It does give a bit of heart to the heartless younger guy/Museketeer in that he's trying to come to grips with his partner wanting to die rather than live. The Museketeer's best friend is a much better character, and kinder somehow. Best of all is the live saving and kind fake doctor who knows good art when he sees it.

This play is full of hidden sadness - a childless marriage; a pilot with a drinking struggle; a woman with a talent for art who never fulfilled her potential and who, in following her feelings and rebelling against what is expected of her, has made her life awful. But it does end in a wail of hope.

Putting life back into twee little 1950's phrases and stopping it from being all 'Brief Encounter' clippedness, it's a testament to Helen McCrory's acting skills when she takes her bow. She looks relaxed and happy, not tense and strained - completely transformed.