Sex and taboos: how Sigmund Freud’s ideas freed secrets of the female psyche

Mark Strong as Oedipus and Lesley Manville as Jocasta (centre) in a new production of Oedipus at London’s Wyndham theatre. Photograph: Manuel Harlan

Female psychosexual drama of the classical kind is currently stalking the London stage to rave reviews in the form of Lesley Manville’s Jocasta, in Oedipus, and Antigone, played by House of Dragon star Emma D’Arcy in The Other Place.

These performances, in productions cleverly updated from ancient Greek, both push the boundaries of transgressive behaviour to shocking effect, courtesy of Sophocles. It is a good time then, for an exhibition in the same city to look anew at the limitations once set on female desire.