By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Friday 27 September, opens Tuesday 8 October and runs through 9 November 2024 RUNTIME: 90 minutes (no interval)

You may be most familiar with actor Emma D’Arcy from their role as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO’s impressive House Of The Dragon but with this modern day re-imagining of a Greek tragedy they have made 2 of the most interesting theatrical choices of 2024 so far.

• Read on for reasons including how this was flawed but features an intelligent performance from 1 of this country’s brightest up-and-coming stars

Earlier this year we saw them opposite Ben Whishaw in Bluets at the Royal Court and this production is writer/director Alexander Zerdin’s take on Sophocles’ Antigone which we last saw at the Barbican almost a decade ago starring Juliet Binoche in a faithful if forgettable Ivo van Hove version.

There are real risks of re-imagining the story featuring a character from Greek mythology who appears in several tragedies but in her own titular tale disagrees with the king about how her brother should be buried.

The most obvious is that by relocating it in the present day that its impact and epic nature is diminished and instead reduced to the heft of a feature-length episode of EastEnders.

Zeldin’s re-interpretation is certainly bold and is successful in reflecting the differences between Generation X and millenials with the former castigating the latter for letting an email go unreplied for 9 months and the latter complaining such behaviour was confronting.

You join us as Tobias Menzies’ (Uncle Vanya, Almeida) Chris is gathering the extended family in the home he has renovated after the suicide of his brother in the trees behind the property to dispose of his ashes in a ceremony months after his death.

D’Arcy’s Annie went missing after her father’s suicide, returns to the fold still struggling with mental health issues as a result and resolves to sabotage her uncle’s plan to remember his brother but also to move on from the events surrounding his death.

Elsewhere Nina Sosanya (Frozen, Theatre Royal Haymarket) is warm as Chris’ supportive partner yet awkward also needlessly being sidetracked into discussion about the complex building works at the property rather than dealing with the awkward and messy grieving together the family will eventually have to confront.

‘Everyone knows how weird I am’ three-quarters of the way through the action feels like a pivotal line from the lips of the quite brilliant D’Arcy’s Annie and it reduces the initially too softly spoken if irritating Chris to the quivering weakling you perhaps never suspected he was.

Alison Oliver (Dancing At Lughnasa, National Theatre) is good too as Annie’s betrayed sister Issy, we enjoy the music by Foals’ Yannis Philippakis and we liked how the intermittent pinging of WhatsApping throughout the play was likely to annoy – or fuel a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) – depending on one’s generation.

We watch this 1st preview at a venue linked closely to Dame Maggie Smith’s (A German Life, Bridge Theatre) career on the day she died and wonder what she might have made of it.

Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus and there are 2 versions of his story London-bound including 1 starring Mark Strong which also appears to be set in modern day.

We think Dame Maggie would have despaired a little at the flawed attempt to make this more relevant to a modern audience but have been as heartened as we were by the intelligent and brave performance by D’Arcy, surely 1 of this country’s brightest, up-and-coming stars of the future.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy National Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen an Emma D’Arcy show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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