Great Gough! This revival is magnificent

SOMETIMES lightning strikes twice. In 2015 Denise Gough delivered a gutsy, star-making performance as fragmenting actress Emma in Duncan Macmillan’s piercing, witty and urgent play about addiction at the National Theatre.

- Nick Curtis

People, Places & Things
Trafalgar Theatre, SW1

Last night Gough reunited with Macmillan and director Jeremy Herrin to recreate that thunderbolt in the newly restored Trafalgar Theatre.

I’ve rarely seen a show where script, production and star mesh so perfectly. Bursts of pumping techno noise express moments of chaos and abandon. Bunny Christie’s antiseptic rehab-centre set is a blank canvas for video projection and sudden eruptions: it frames a bank of audience members on the stage behind, so we can all have a good, hard look at ourselves.