Saw the last night of Simon Stone’s adaptation of Ibsen’s ‘The Lady from the Sea’ at the Bridge Theatre in London.

Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln were outstanding in the lead roles. Gracie Oddie-Jones was spectacular, in a stand-out performance as Assa.

The set was incredible, from a snow white bare set in the first half, to its negative of constant rain (I did watch the roof lights steam…and wonder…), darkness and swimming pool in the second half.

I love to see modern takes on old classics - however I do think Stone overcooked it with this play; introducing too many subplots and setting up three (jarring) registers - Ellida’s psychological conflict, the shouty bits by other characters and the comedic - the effect for me was that Ellida’s yearning for freedom and agency, symbolised by her longing for the sea in the original, was diluted (sorry, pun intended) by the additional noise around her.

Societal constraints on women is a central theme in Ibsen’s work and that concept pretty much made a walk-on walk-off walk-on walk-off appearance.

In creative writing we know that , especially in a short story or play, you cannot have a big reveal two seconds from curtain fall - to do so elicits a meh, a ‘so what’ from the reader/audience, and the speech Ellida made close to the end of the play, was just too obvious - it utterly undermined everything the character appeared to be striving towards, I felt.