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Press Reviews

 

Effie’s Burning 18/03/04

By Marion Mansfield
Reading Chronicle / Bracknell News

Rarely have I sat through a play that had such an impact long after leaving the theatre as this stunning little one by Valerie Windsor. It should be mandatory viewing for all social workers, health care professionals and politicians who take major decisions about vulnerable people’s lives.

Frail and elderly Effie is in a hospital ward having spent most of her life in homes due to rape and the shame of the subsequent pregnancy in her early teens. Her story is a dreadful indictment of society then and also highlights the personal and sometimes tragic cost now, in our present crisis in the closure of residential nursing homes and the rush to ‘care in the community.’

I take my hat off to Lin Blakley as Effie, who was simply magnificent. She was endearingly and excruciatingly real as the childlike, obstinate, heartbreakingly confused and frightened little old lady. And a lovely performance by Gerri Farrell as Dr Ruth Kovacs, the only professional who had enough heart to be bothered to listen to Effie, even though she had enough troubles of her own.

Blackeyed Theatre are a new company and this was Mark Holliday’s directorial debut and what an outstanding one at that. I look forward to their future projects with great interest.