Sophie Okonedo with Ben Daniels
(Picture: Johan Persson)It’s not your typical West End entertainment but this staging of Euripides’ Greek tragedy grips with a cold, bleak force. Sophie Okonedo is riveting in her first stage role for four years, dredging up vast reserves of emotion to play Medea, a woman who gave up everything for Jason, the hero she loved, and for their two young sons. And who does the unthinkable when he leaves her for the younger, more politically advantageous daughter of King Creon.
Okonedo has an excellent foil in her old friend Ben Daniels, who circles the almost-bare stage in menacing slow motion before stepping in to play Jason and all the other male parts. There’s something wonderful about finding Dominic Cooke’s uncompromising, brutally human 90-minute production amid the video-spattered architectural kaleidoscope of the redeveloped Tottenham Court Road.
