Helen dives in at the deep end as a love cheat
HELEN McCRORY is about to jump into the Deep without a lifebelt. The award-winning actress will return to the National Theatre in June to play Terence Rattigan’s tortured heroine Hester Collyer in his 1952 drama The Deep Blue Sea.
‘I’ve literally just said, Yes!’ Helen told me yesterday.
She said she’s very taken by the role of Hester, wife of Sir William Collyer, a High Court judge, who cheats on her husband by moving into an undesirable flat with Freddie, a former RAF pilot left psychologically damaged by the war.
Helen said Hester’s ‘just drowning in it, from the beginning, but whether it’s from ecstasy or misery I don’t know . . . it’s what happens to you when you’re overwhelmed by love.
‘I think Hester’s very funny, very bright — and what’s so interesting about her and Freddie is that she understands completely what she’s doing, but she’s unable to stop herself.
‘She has this addiction for him she knows is wrong,’ the actress told me as we discussed the production. It reunites her with Carrie Cracknell, who directed her powerful Medea at the National two years ago.
Helen said she felt sympathy for the cuckolded husband, too. ‘I imagine she’s come through the war with him.’
But she felt a strong aversion to Freddie. ‘He’s so destructive. He’s horrible, I think. He has the cruelty of youth — young people are very cruel,’ she told me.
‘You understand, as you get older, that kindness and consideration go a long way in a relationship — and he has neither of those, yet.’
Thankfully, Helen’s own husband, the actor Damian Lewis, was downstairs greeting callers at the front door while we chatted on the phone about the lustful sex that drives Hester into Freddie’s arms.
She’s eager to discover who will play the two men in Hester’s life and whether Sir William will be the same age as, or older than, Hester. ‘It might add another layer if they’re the same age,’ she suggested.
Hester is one of the major modern classic parts. I saw Penelope Wilton perform it at the Almeida; Blythe Danner doing it in New York and Rachel Weisz in Terence Davies’s visually arresting film.
Helen is looking forward to being back at the NT, where she made her professional London debut in Trelawney Of The Wells. The play will run at the Lyttelton in June.
In April, she can also be seen in the third series of the BBC’s Peaky Blinders and has filmed new episodes of Penny Dreadful for Sky Atlantic and Neal Street Productions.