It's election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.
Icke's visionary revival was nothing short of a sensation. Oedipus became an instant phenomenon and the highest-grossing limited-run production in Wyndham's history. It didn't just bring Greek tragedy back to the West End—it redefined it. This Oedipus played like a political thriller, gripping audiences in breathless suspense until its final, devastating moment.
Robert Icke is one of our best and most exciting theatrical talents, full stop. Any announcement of new work from the writer-director, known stateside lately for his incendiary updates of the Oresteia, Hamlet and The Doctor (from Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi), are reason enough to immediately secure at least one round of tickets. So it’s curious that he’s hit a wall with Sophocles’ Oedipus. There’s still the baseline level of competence for which he’s come to be known – a sleek, glass-paneled modernist set by Hildegard Bechtler; laser-sharp performances, this time led by the phenomenal pairing of Mark Strong and Lesley Manville – that is leagues above most others’ hopes for excellence. But without the profound insight (modern and timeless) he’s excavated from those other works, there’s little to generate the same theatrical electricity.
But Oedipus’ strengths — the keenness of his mind, his heroic commitment to truth and transparency — mustn’t be overlooked. Strong, who won an Olivier Award for his performance in Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge,” exposes the boyish vulnerability within the sophisticated politician in his sympathetically beguiling portrayal.
| West End |
West End |
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| 2025 | West End |
West End |
| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway |
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