Review: 'The Lady from the Sea' starring Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln at the Bridge Theatre

"Although Aussie director Simon Stone has staged only a handful of shows in the UK, it has to be said that you can see a pattern developing. Take a classic play - previously Lorca's - 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."

"They live with Edward's two pathologically precocious daughters from his first marriage: Asa (Grace Oddie-Jones), who is at university, and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike), who is at school. Tossed into the mix are Heath (Joe Alwyn), a hot but nerdy distant cousin who has come to Edward to get a diagnosis for a worrying neurological symptoms, and Lyle (John Macmillan), Edward and Ellida's droll family friend, who is also hot but nerdy."

Simon Stone stages a modernized The Lady from the Sea that preserves Ibsen's basic plot while altering characterisation and motives. The cast includes Andrew Lincoln as Edward, Alicia Vikander as Ellida, Grace Oddie-Jones as Asa and Isobel Akuwudike as Hilda, with Joe Alwyn as Heath and John Macmillan as Lyle. The set by Lizzie Clachlan uses a bougie white thrust design suggesting a contemporary affluent home. Dialogue is rendered in aggressively modern English with prolonged, witty posh banter and contemporary references such as OnlyFans. The piece shifts from light, comic social interplay to a sudden, visceral tragic turn, enhanced by Berlin-influenced stage trickery.

Read at Time Out London