Sam Marlowe

Van Hove, whose adaptation was created with Yanagihara and Koen Tachelet, offers us an experience that feels closer to the dogged fatalism and catharsis of Greek tragedy. Leaner, nimbler and, with designs by Jan Versweyveld, visually indelible, this stage version liberates the twisted fairytale at the heart of the narrative, becoming more of a fable, more powerfully symbolic and less tangled in extraneous detail and portentous pontificating. It is so harrowing as to be nearly unbearable, yet it rarely wallows. In fact, it is a production of cool temperature, handling atrocity with clinical precision, and moments of grace with an economical elegance.

Prince’s motormouth lyrics are adroitly crammed with intricate stacked rhymes, as the performers undulate, grind and pop their way through a whistle-stop tour of the Sylvia Pankhurst story. The obvious comparison is with mighty musical blockbuster Hamilton. But with its cartoonish tone and fist-pumping, feminist-lite energy, the show is a closer sister to Six, which puts a similar girl-power gloss on the wives of Henry VIII. Nuance is sacrificed to high-voltage freneticism. Still, it’s rambunctious fun – and at its best, it captures enough of the euphoric passion of protest to make you, too, want to take to the streets.