Michelle Dockery in Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy [Tristram Kenton]

AMID a wave of reinterpretations of the Greek classics, Ava Pickett’s Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy feels one of the freshest.

It opens with a messenger (Ethan Moorhouse), a tracksuited chorus figure, setting the scene.

He pops up throughout to offer his opinion or fill out gaps in the narrative.

The setting is modern day Essex. Cee (a gloriously brittle Laura Aikman) nervously awaits the return of her husband Mario (bullish tattooed Gerard Monaco), his younger brother Marcus (Jay Taylor), and his wife – Cee’s former friend – Helen (Michelle Dockery).

Cee is proud of her immaculate house with its cream rugs (cleverly designed by Polly Sullivan with a tree branch overhead, hinting at something darker). It’s kept spotless by her cleaner Dani (Maimuna Memon), armed with canapes for the homecoming, yet not as submissive as she seems.

After Helen ran off with Paris, a foreigner, the brothers set off in hot pursuit causing a protracted civil war, exacting a bloody revenge, and fuelling racial hatred. Mario’s swagger recalls the masked thugs of recent days, assured of their right to sow discord.

Helen arrives with the pair weary, barefoot and bleeding, but uncowed. After toasting their success with Prosecco, the men quickly decamp to the boozer leaving the women under the watchful eye of Luke (Joshua-Alexander Williams), a young soldier.

We soon learn of Helen’s stifling marriage and passion for Paris. We begin to empathise, until her pregnant daughter Hermione (Emma Monnickendam) offers another view of her abandonment, and Pickett shifts our sympathies once again.

The play’s abrupt ending won’t appeal to all, but this is bold writing and Lisa Spirling’s taut production is compelling.

Until October 10
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