The world premiere of Ava Pickett’s new play Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at Stratford East has been met with a warm reception from the critics overall, with plenty of praise for Michelle Dockery’s performance as Helen, and one four-star rating hailing the show as “sharp, stylish, consistently compelling and effortlessly entertaining.”
The sophomore work from acclaimed playwright Ava Pickett, Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy takes a closer look at Helen of Troy through the lens of a female friendship. The play explores friendship, motherhood, and what happens when the woman whose face started a war returns home to finish it. It follows the vast success of Pickett’s debut play 1536 last year.
Michelle Dockery leads the cast of Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy as Helen, Laura Aikman making her stage debut as Cee, while Maimuna Memon plays Dani.
The show has been called “riveting” and “compelling,” by critics, with their one point of contention being whether the ending is as strong as it could be.
The verdict: A “sharp, stylish, consistently compelling and effortlessly entertaining” play, but some critics highlight that the ending leads to mixed feelings.
Critic’s comparisons
| Publication | Rating | The Key Takeaway |
| What’s On Stage | ★★★★ | “It’s like Sarah Kane crossed with The Only Way is Essex.” |
| Time Out | ★★★★ | “I have mixed feelings about the ending…but this is a minor quibble.” |
| The Stage | ★★★★ | “Sharp, stylish, compelling and effortlessly entertaining.” |
| The Standard | ★★★★ | “Bloodsport is built around three strong and complex female roles.” |
| Radio Times | ★★★ | “The realness of it was this show’s biggest strength.” |
The reviews: what the critics loved about Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy
- Plenty of twists: The Stage’s Sam Marlowe called Pickett’s plotting “deliciously twisty, as she riffs on the pitiless cycle of killing and retribution that is typical of classical Greek drama.” The writer received similar praise from Sarah Compton from What’s On Stage said the story was “genuinely dramatic, taking surprising twists and providing real shocks, underpinned by Nicola T Chang’s sound design, and tightly directed by Lisa Spirling.”
- Dockery’s strong performance: Critics praised Dockery’s performance, with What’s On Stage’s Sarah Crompton calling it “gripping,” and Nick Curtis of The Standard said it “Playing Helen of Troy is a challenge for any actress and Dockery’s estuary version is dry and peremptory, wearied by the curse of her beauty.”
The reviews: where the critics differed
- Realness being a strength and a downfall: Olivia Garrett from Radio Times said although the play’s “realness” was its “biggest strength, she highlighted that she also found herself “too often thinking about the play than actually enjoying it. While the dialogue was perfect, the play still struggled to really grip me and immerse me in the goings-on.”
- The ending: Andrzej Lukowski shared his “minor quibble” was the show’s conclusion. It said the play was “momentarily satisfying but also feels more like an arch observation than a proper end” to the characters’ arcs. Radio Times’ Garrett, however, outlined that the ending left her feeling “utterly bereft” which she expected “was Pickett’s intention” with her writing.
The back story
Years after she walked out on her family, Helen has returned home after a war fought in her name. Her husband celebrates but her childhood friend Cee does not. Over the course of this first fragile night of peacetime, wounds reopen, loyalties fracture and the true cost of a woman’s choice to leave her life is made clear. Over the course of the night, wounds reopen, loyalties fracture and the true cost of a woman’s choice to leave her life is made clear.
Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy explores friendship, motherhood, and what happens when the woman whose face started a war returns home to finish it.
Written by Ava Pickett, the play follows the success of her debut play 1536 last year, which followed three friends who receive word about Anne Boleyn’s demise, seeing the parallels in the rise of patriarchy in their village. Critics universally praised 1536, both in its original run and in the West End transfer at the Almeida.
The cast includes:
- Helen: Michelle Dockery
- Cee: Laura Aikman
- Dani: Maimuna Memon
- Mario: Gerard Monaco
- Messenger: Ethan Moorhouse
- Hermione: Emma Monnickendam
- Marcus: Jay Taylor
- Woman: Ellie Turner
- Luke: Joshua-Alexander Williams
The creative team includes
- Writer: Ava Pickett
- Director: Lisa Spirling
- Set & Costume Designer: Polly Sullivan
- Lighting Designer: Zeynep Kepekli
- Sound Designer and Composer: Nicola T. Chang
- Casting Director: Juliet Horsley CDG
- Dramaturg: Ed Madden
- Fight & Intimacy Director: Enric Ortuño
- Voice and Dialect: Claudette Williams
- Costume Supervisor: Sophie Fuller
- Assistant Director: Ariana Xeno
Where to see Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy
- Venue: Theatre Royal Stratford East ,Gerry Raffles Square, London, E15 1BN, until 10 October
- Age guidance: 14+
- Tickets: From £10
Full details on Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy
What are the critics saying about Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy?
“TOWIE meets Blasted by way of the Iliad in this breezily provocative fourth play from rising star playwright Ava Pickett.”
“Bloodsport is both fresh but also pleasingly of a piece with Pickett’s other work, insofar as like her previous plays – even breakthrough Tudor smash 1536 – it’s set in Essex.”
“I have mixed feelings about the ending, a sardonic comment on white feminism that’s momentarily satisfying but also feels more like an arch observation than a proper end to the various character arcs. But this is a minor quibble.”
“Really, though, the playwright is the star[...] She’s on the fast track to national treasure status: let’s enjoy the theatre bit for as long as it lasts.”
“Written before 1536, this play which sees Helen return from the war to contemporary Essex, is full of spit, fire and brilliance. It’s like Sarah Kane crossed with The Only Way is Essex – devastatingly funny but utterly furious about the state of the world and the way that women within it are treated.”
“There’s a marvellous moment when Helen’s pregnant daughter Hermione turns up, seeking to discover something about the mother who abandoned her ten years previously.”
“The action as it unfolds – as the women challenge their patriarchal, violent husbands – is genuinely dramatic, taking surprising twists and providing real shocks, underpinned by Nicola T Chang’s sound design, and tightly directed by Lisa Spirling.”
“Dockery is gripping as Helen, aware of her beauty, furious at her treatment and there are satisfyingly complex performances from Maimuna Memon as Dani [...] and from Emma Monnickendam’s wounded Hermione.”
“But the true glory of Bloodsport is that it confirms Pickett’s bold, confident instincts as a writer. The tension and cleverness of its conception never falters, and the words rise like a sword taking on the world.”
“In its unflinching refusal to take refuge in the obvious and its darkly funny reworking of the tragic form, it’s a seriously clever piece of dramatic writing.”
“Pickett’s plotting is deliciously twisty, as she riffs on the pitiless cycle of killing and retribution that is typical of classical Greek drama.”
‘The play’s title is ingenious: in its accounts of the emotional wounds men and women inflict in the arenas of love and sex, there is indeed a bloody kind of sport.”
“It’s sharp, stylish, consistently compelling and effortlessly entertaining. And it confirms Pickett as one of our most exciting fast-rising theatrical talents.”
“With masked gangs of angry men currently on British streets, Ava Pickett’s riposte to toxic masculinity, which transposes the aftermath of the Trojan war to contemporary Essex, couldn’t feel more timely.”
“Pickett’s flair for rich, heightened dialogue, and for puncturing high drama with sudden humour, are already thrillingly present. Like 1536, Bloodsport is built around three strong and complex female roles, embraced with relish in Lisa Spirling’s punchy production.”
“In her sophomore offering, playwright Ava Pickett clips the wings of thousands of years of epic poetry by showing us the unfiltered aftermath of Helen of Troy's return to Sparta.”
“Every female character feels like someone you know, and the biggest power is how each one of them makes you turn inward and think.”
“The realness of it was this show's biggest strength, but the thing is, I found myself too often thinking about the play than actually enjoying it. While the dialogue was perfect, the play still struggled to really grip me and immerse me in the goings-on.”
“The ending, which left me feeling utterly bereft – although I expect that was Pickett's intention.”
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