Is that enough for Effie’s cathartic burst of empathy, her Damascene conversion to altruism and the peculiar revenge it brings as compensation? Maybe – she’s young and young people can change their views after events far less traumatic than that which overwhelms Effie’s worldview. I grew up with people like Effie and, though they can be capable of these gestures, there’s perhaps too much weight placed on the sentimental in driving her cathartic decision: the drip-feed of images of the helpless, the abandoned and the rescued. That, in turn, prompts her own version of Iphigenia’s sacrifice for the good of others. So it’s all the more poignant when she’s shown what "not alone" feels like for the first time in her life, only to have it snatched away not once but twice. She can be sexy and repulsive – sometimes simultaneously – but she's also funny and clever, with enough self-awareness to know that in unleashing her id and denying her superego, she's only fooling herself. Whether shouting or whispering, she is riveting throughout, and that’s just how Effie likes it. She prowls the big stage of the Lyric Theatre, the largest on which the play has been performed, disgusting us, charming us and, somewhat problematically, calling us to action. It’s a bravura performance to rival Prima Facie’s Jodie Comer (her near-contemporary and, praise be, another actress who can do a working-class accent without the benefit of three years voice-training at RADA). Sophie Melville ( pictured below) is no less supercharged seven years on from when she first played ("inhabited" is the better verb) Cardiff's Effie. She tries calling, texting and even pitches up at his home, but we’ve all guessed why she’s getting the cold shoulder and we’ve all guessed what’s going to happen next. When she meets an Afghan war veteran for a one-night stand, she feels something stir inside her, a feeling of being (and playwright Owen’s phrase is critical here) "not alone". Effie may be a failure of society, but she's loving her life. She is seen living the hedonism worthy of a fortnight in Ibiza for 52 weeks a year in er… Splott, a district of Cardiff, shit-faced, smoking and shagging.
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