Sophie Melville to reprise her award-winning role in Iphigenia in Splott

Sophie Melville will reprise her award-winning role in Iphigenia in Splott when the play is revived at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.

Gary Owen’s play is being brought to the venue by artistic director Rachel O’Riordan, who directed it originally, when it first ran at the Sherman Theatre under her leadership.

The play then had a run at the National Theatre, with Melville winning a The Stage Award for Acting Excellence for her performance in the production.

It will run at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre from September 26 until October 22, with a press night on September 30.

O’Riordan said: “This play is a call to arms and its relevance now is sharper than ever before. It delves into austerity and cuts; are we colluding as a society where some people get to live and others get to survive? What this play does so beautifully is give voice to something that we can all easily ignore. It gives a platform to the voice of people who are demonised by society and are not given the opportunities in life to thrive.”

She added: “Iphigenia or ‘Effie’ as she is called in the play is extraordinary. Yet, her life can be easily seen as less valuable and what this play does is make her the hero.
 
“For me, it felt important to bring this work back. Theatre’s role is to showcase us as a society: why we are here and how we got here. It’s not been staged in a proscenium arch theatre before and on our stage, it will play its biggest house ever.”

Owen said the play was originally written in response to the austerity policies of David Cameron’s government, “which slashed public services while pushing the message that we were ‘all in it together’”.

He added: “Our NHS has been under-funded for a decade. The pandemic has brought it to a point of collapse faster than we might have expected; but that collapse was always coming. People will suffer because of that collapse – and it’s the most vulnerable who suffer the most.
 
“What the play aims to do is present someone who is obnoxious, offensive, aggressive, who doesn’t help herself, who is a nightmare to live next door to; then it presents her suffering. It dares us to say that her suffering doesn’t count…if we can.”
 
The production is designed by Hayley Grindle, with lighting by Rachel Mortimer and sound by Sam Jones.