Reviews round-up of Electra at the Old Vic starring Kristin Scott Thomas
The reviews are in for Electra, which opened last night at the Old Vic Theatre starring Kristin Scott Thomas as Electra, Jack Lowden as Orestes, Amanda Drew as Chrysothemis and Diana Quick as Clytemnestra.
And apart from the Daily Mail, they are raves pretty much across the board, particularly the Indie and Telegraph who lavish five stars on the production, notably Scott Thomas’s performance.
The production is directed by Ian Rickson and adapted by Frank McGuinness.
Read reviews below from the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Independent and more.
BOOK
Book tickets to Electra at the Old Vic starring Kristin Scott Thomas
Average Critics Rating
★★★★★
REVIEWS ROUND-UP
The Guardian
★★★★
"Scott Thomas is always intensely watchable: she is especially good at suggesting the thwarted mother in Electra by nursing the urn apparently containing her brother’s ashes as if it were a baby. But, while Scott Thomas does nothing wrong, she occasionally does a bit too much: it’s a psychologically perceptive study of a spiritually wounded woman full of passionate intensity that lacks only the element of stillness. “It’s time to act,” a servant says at one point. There is also a time when it is sufficient just to be."Read more
The Daily Telegraph
★★★★★
"We’re so used to seeing Kristin Scott Thomas look elegant and refined that it comes as quite a shock to see her transformed into an unkempt, sickly hued and sleep-deprived creature.
Her tour de force performance in the gruelling role of Sophocles’ grief-ridden Electra rewrites our understanding of her capabilities. We knew Scott Thomas, 54, was very good – increasingly so on stage. After all, she won an Olivier award for her turn as Arkadina in The Seagull for director Ian Rickson, with whom she teams up again here (their fourth collaboration). Yet within 90 minutes or so, the erstwhile screen goddess propels herself into the first rank of theatrical titans."Read more
The Independent
★★★★★
"Kristin Scott Thomas and director Ian Rickson are developing into one of the great creative partnerships of our time. After a Chekhov and two Pinters, they are reunited now on this devastatingly brilliant production of Sophocles' great tragedy Electra."
"Jack Lowden bringing an excellent vulnerability and open-ended quality to a character who could be simplified as a career killer-in-waiting"Read more
Daily Mail
★★
"Miss Scott Thomas’s Electra is no more a tragic plaything of the gods than someone caught in a cycle of modern domestic homicide. This is meant to be Sophocles, reaching into our viscera with his awful predicaments. I’m afraid it simply feels like a high-falutin’ episode of Midsomer Murders."Read more
Time Out
★★★★
"Rickson’s production does feel in need of more light and shade – it kind of batters you for 100 minutes and then suddenly fades. More prosaically, there are some pretty ropey sight lines for those sitting near the front of the in-the-round auditorium (I’d sit at least five rows back). But it’s unquestionably another solid link in the Old Vic’s 2014 renaissance, a tremendously visceral and wholly uncompromising exploration of emotional pain."Read more
📷 Main photo: Reviews round-up of Electra at the Old Vic starring Kristin Scott Thomas
