Lyttleton Theatre Archives

A Poet for Every Day of the Year at the National Theatre

Quentin Letts | The Sunday Times | January 30, 2022

Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis in 2015 MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

A Poet for Every Day of the Year
Lyttelton, National Theatre, London SE1
★★★★☆

Helen McCrory’s voice had not crackled across the Lyttelton stage since her 2016 performance in The Deep Blue Sea, but it was heard again on Tuesday when a poetry reading in her memory closed with grainy footage of her at a similar event some years back. That McCrory voice, rich as brandied cake, delivered Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese. Amid despair “the world goes on” and clear pebbles of rain continue to drift across prairies while wild geese, high above, “are heading home again”.

Continue reading A Joyful Tribute to Helen McCrory by Damian Lewis

An Ode to Helen McCrory at the National Theatre

by Dominic Maxwell | The Times | January 26, 2022

Damian Lewis paid fitting tribute to his late wife URSZULA SOLTYS

★★★★☆

How would Damian Lewis, making his first stage appearance since the death of his wife Helen McCrory last April, begin an occasion dedicated to her memory? With a no-nonsense nod to the mixture of happiness and sadness of being at an occasional poetry reading event that she had taken part in previously herself? With a poem in her honour, performed to a well-scrubbed crowd (including McCrory’s friend Helena Bonham Carter) who had turned out to see him and Sir Simon Russell Beale, Fay Ripley, Danny Sapani and Lesley Sharp reading from the latest anthology of 366 poems edited by the evening’s organiser and host, Allie Esiri?

Continue reading A Poet for Every Day of the Year review: Ode to Helen McCrory cuts to the heart of the matter