Fury at the Soho Theatre, W1

written for The Times, 14th July 2016

Two kids by 21, that’s how Sam got her council flat. Tom, on the other hand, found the flatshare next door thanks to Zoopla and SpareRoom.com. Sam dodges social workers, scrubs toilets and steals from the corner shop to keep her sons out of care, so when it all gets too much she knocks the boys about a bit. Tom drifts through his MA and tips Sam a tenner to clean on her knees.

Such is Fury, Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s bruising vision of Medea in chavland. There are no dragon’s teeth or princesses here, though Sam’s snaky ex, Rob, has run off with a babe posh enough to prioritise pregnant Pilates over child support. Sam may not have the mythic Medea’s glamour, nor her powerful father, but she offers men snatches of ecstasy and leaves herself a little more broken each time. Fury’s real debt to the Medea tradition is a deep sense of the fragility of motherhood, the vulnerability of a woman whose love for her children is the lever for blackmail, exploitation and betrayal.

It is a young work — Eclair-Powell is 26 — and it isn’t perfect. The sideswipes at gentrification, the 2D walk-on roles for Sam’s cruel employers: there are plenty of hard edges that could benefit from being softened, fleshed out. What really makes Fury worth the punt, however, is a fierce, kinesthetic performance from Sarah Ridgeway as our Madonna of the tower block. This is a portrait of damaged youth performed with rare maturity, desire and deprivation all wrapped up in one. Her scenes with Alex Austin’s sly, manipulative Tom will leave you trembling.

Intercut with all this tension is a smirking, predatory chorus of three. It’s all a bit much — at times, this cacophony of an inner monologue takes flesh and we see Hannah Hauer-King’s actors pummel a wilting Sam as if learning slow-motion stage combat in a home counties drama club. Yet it’s still a vivid, vital 70 minutes. Impressive.