The House of Shades
Almeida Theatre, London

The extremities of Greek drama – matricide, patricide, infanticide, cannibalism, incest – are easily seen as ancient social failures that preceded our civilisation. However, current near-­existential convulsions of democracy, economics and justice in the West have given the savage, cursed, perverted situations of the earliest tragedies an alarming topicality.

Novels such as Colm Tóibín’s House of Names and Pat Barker’s The Silence of The Girls, and plays including Kae Tempest’s Paradise and Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is locate Clytemnestras, Orestes and Medeas around us now.