Watery family drama floats my boat

Bridge Theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑

Andrew Lincoln & Alicia Vikander in The Lady From The Sea. Photo: Johan Persson

Simon Stone brought us Yerma with Billie Piper, one of the finest productions I have ever seen, and Phaedra with Janet McTeer which was pretty good too. He likes to take a classic, tear it apart, get down to its basics, and rebuild it for the modern world. So did he pull it off with Henrik Ibsen, father of theatrical realism, and stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln? The answer is, yes, with style. It is an entertaining, amusing, gripping, unique piece of theatre.

The evening starts (and continues) with much would-be witty repartee of the kind that you find in fiction rather than real life, except this production often presents it as crass or cringeworthy, and characters talk over one another, and mock one another. Ibsen was an early proselytiser of theatrical realism which meant believable conversations featuring middle class families that middle class theatre audiences could identify with, as opposed to the previous focus on royalty and gods. This play, with a script developed by the actors in conjunction with writer director Simon Stone, pays full homage to Ibsen with its realistic dialogue.

The subject matter is serious but this version is also very funny. One of exchanges that made me laugh, given the title of the play, was when someone said to Ellida: ‘You must be the lady of the house’ and she responded: ‘Did he just call me a lady?’

The play is set in the modern day in the Lake District, which makes a change from the Cotswolds, and is sprinkled with contemporary references, to OnlyFans and Just Stop Oil and the like, but the themes of love, loss and the effect of the past on the present are eternal and universal.

Edward and his second wife Ellida seem happy. Although his daughters from his first marriage are rebellious and rude, the couple are able to shrug it off. Then a former lover appears and Ellie must make a choice between an unfinished relationship and her current love.

Death hangs over the narrative: there are suicides, one by Edward’s first wife; Edward and Ellida have lost a child through miscarriage; a visiting young sculptor has a terminal illness. While the presence of death in their lives messes up some of the characters’ lives, it also acts as a reminder that life is short and unpredictable, and needs to be lived, not postponed. Dramatic choices and revelations continue to the end.

The acting is uniformly excellent but none better than the two leads- Andrew Lincoln is totally convincing as a man lacking confidence, despite being a leading neurologist. This is revealed to be the result of a cold father. Events test Edward’s liberal attitudes to breaking point. He, like the script, is funny, angry and anguished.

Alicia Vikander is a more subdued presence playing a quietly confident mature woman, with a slightly flat, stuttering delivery that made all the more powerful her passion, when it came out. At that point, she seemed to revert to the nervous, vulnerable youngster from twenty years earlier, who made decisions that would shape her life.

The young people- two teenage daughters planning the first stages of adulthood, and the dying sculptor- remind us of the turbulence of life as a young person. I loved Isobel Akuwudike and Gracie Oddie-James as the stroppy but ultimately caring daughters, and Joe Alwyn is wonderfully neurotic as the sculptor. John Macmillan is spot-on as the blunt, faithful family friend Lyle. Brendan Cowell is suitably charismatic as Finn, the lover from the past.

The Lady From The Sea at The Bridge. Photo: Johan Persson

Lizzie Clachan’s magnificent set isn’t in keeping with ideas of realism. It is pure theatre. The show is set in the round, bringing the audience close to the actors in this intimate family drama. There are minimal props- a table and chairs in one corner and a sun lounger opposite. (Avoid seats near the right corner as you enter the auditorium and the opposite corner on the far side, as these bits of furniture will sometimes obscure your view.)

During the interval, the entire set, both the floor and the small number of props are changed from completely white to totally black. Straightaway, you feel there will trouble ahead! The beginnings of scenes increasingly overlap with the ends of the previous ones, as the tension increases- as if we can’t wait to see what happens next.

Much of the baggage Ellida carries is weighed down by events at sea, so , in an eye-popping moment in the second act, water appears, first as heavy rain, then as shallow water when part of the stage drops. Two lovers make out in it with echoes of From Here To Eternity, before it becomes a swimming pool. It may not be an immersive production from the audience’s point of view but some of the actors are fully immersed in the pool. It could only happen in theatre. But, far from being gloomy, the water- like the play itself- is ultimately cleansing.

This is an intense piece of theatre I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.

The Lady From The Sea can be seen at The Bridge until 8 November 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

Paul purchased his ticket.

Click here to watch a video of this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Ibsen update: intense or mundane?

Bridge Theatre

Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln in The Lady from the Sea. Photo: Johan Persson

Following his visceral adaptations of Yerma and Phaedra, writer/director Simon Stone has turned his attention to Ibsen’s The Lady From The Sea. Screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln, plus Joe Alwyn and Brendan Cowell, impressed the critics but opinions varied on the quality of the adaptation. As a modern day middle class marriage comes under fire, some found it intense, others thought it was meandering and an insult to Ibsen. Lizzie Clachan’s traverse set uses a lot of water in the second act to metaphorical effect, which most critics enjoyed but some found over the top.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar commented: ‘Simon Stone is known for his rock’n’roll takes on the classics. This is a characteristically high-octane version of Ibsen’s play: loud, modern and led by screen stars Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln. Yet his script, again created in the rehearsal process, retains all of Ibsen’s layers and adds some of its own in the updating’. She talked of : ‘the full-bodied intensity of the production, which is fantastically original, gripping and magnificent to the end.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis called it ‘a dense, emotionally intense and often hilarious three hours – and god knows, belly laughs aren’t common with Ibsen – marred by a certain glibness.’ He explained: ‘As he formerly did with Lorca’s Yerma and Seneca’s Phaedra, Stone rebuilt the play in rehearsal with his cast, and they’ve worked hard to create a psychological and narratively coherent modern parallel for Ibsen’s ocean-worshipping mysticism…It works, but it reduces the play to being all about daddy issues.’

Dave Fargnoli of The Stage praised the stars and the writer: ‘Heading a uniformly strong cast, Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander’s Ellida roils with subdued emotion, her anxieties and divided loyalties visibly bubbling under the surface’…’Andrew Lincoln gives a consummate performance as neurologist Edward, maintaining an air of focused calm and fairness in the face of continual provocation’…’Stone’s contemporary dialogue is fast-paced and ferociously entertaining, equal parts realistic rhythms and deliberately grandiose pronouncements.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton said: ‘The script is demotic, flowing, beautifully written, and the entire cast inhabit it with ease, drawing the lines of character with power and subtle’ but complained: ‘The production, however, is clumsier than the script. I took against Lizzie Clachan’s staging – in long traverse, with the audience surrounding the playing area – that means from where I was sitting, I viewed events through a table, or from the back of a sun lounger.’ She concluded: ‘It is a hugely enjoyable evening, full of insight and provocation.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Matt Wolf writing for The Arts Desk declared: ‘Like the lighting that crackles now and again to indicate an abrupt change of scene or mood, Simon Stone’s version of The Lady from the Sea is illuminated by the sense of adventure and excitement one has come to expect from this singular artist.’

The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming found: ‘Stone’s dialogue crackles with wit…It’s peppered too with truths about love, the competing urges for freedom and security, the intensity of youthful emotions that blaze in the memory, the legacy of parental failings and frailties. Above all there’s the uncertainty and restlessness of living in such a messed-up world. It’s also superbly acted.’

Tongue in cheek, Andrjez Lukowski of TimeOut described a pattern in Stone’s adaptations: ‘rewrite the whole thing into aggressively modern English that revolves around long, light hearted stretches of posh people swearing amusingly, season with a bit of Berlin-indebted stage trickery, and finally change tack and wallop us with the tragedy, right in the guts.’ He concluded: ‘when it’s serious, it’s very good. And when it’s silly it remains maddeningly entertaining.’

Dominic Maxwell of The Times commented: ‘It’s full of skill and ingenuity. But the 21st-century self-awareness drowns out Ibsen’s alluring strangeness as much as it makes it resonate.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish felt: ‘The snag is that the staging, by Australian hotshot Simon Stone (with semi-abstract design by Lizzie Clachan), leaves his cast first high and dry on an exposing platform, then drowning in directorial overkill, as a deluge turns the set into a raised pool.’

Fiona Mountford of the i started positively: ‘The great news is that Andrew Lincoln …and… Alicia Vikander – in her London stage debut – make for a phenomenal central pairing as a distinguished older man on his second marriage and an attractive younger woman on her first.’ However, ‘The trouble with Stone’s updating of this story – of past loves returning to haunt current lives – is that he attempts to afford too many characters too great a slice of the dramatic action.’

2 stars ⭑⭑

Alice Saville of The Independent was damning about Stone’s adaptation: ‘He’s taken Henrik Ibsen’s tragic fable and extended it into something both lengthy and oddly mundane, bloated with new dialogue that namechecks OnlyFans and Nineties rap groups. It’s an unlikely showcase for the talents of a confident Andrew Lincoln..and..Alicia Vikander, who seems understandably adrift making her stage debut in this directionless play.’ She went on: ‘it feels as though, in laboriously engineering a plausible 21st-century setting for Ibsen’s story to unfold in, Stone has lost sight of what this play’s actually about.’ She decided: ‘It’s all a bit undignified for poor Ibsen… this play thoroughly retools his dialogue without finding a language for his symbolism.’

The Mail’s Patrick Marmion was also disappointed, describing the main characters as ‘a blandly homogenous bunch of wittering, health-conscious hedonists, without a cultural, moral, or political compass between them.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.2⭑

Value rating 35 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

The Lady from the Sea can be seen at the Bridge Theatre until 8 November 2025. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

Click here to read Paul Seven Lewis’ review of The Lady From The Sea

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