Last Updated on September 11, 2026
Ava Pickett’s latest play starring Michelle Dockery
4.5 out of 5.0 starsAlthough Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy is billed as a conflict between two female friends, there is much more to rising playwright Ava Pickett’s dynamic follow up to her award-winning 1536. With feisty dialogue in a domestic Essex sitting room, it’s like a modern Abigail’s Party except there’s a sex-war going on instead of a disco.
Bloodsport is immediately funny, although it’s definitely not a comedy. There were many barbed retorts drawing guffaws from the audience. There’s violence on and off set, but despite the early consideration of delicate furnishings and clothing, it never goes full-on Tarantino.
Polly Sullivan’s set signals an aspirational-class home interior; dove grey walls, Live Laugh Love prints, enlarged family studio portraits and Ercol dining set; think John Lewis x Mrs Hinch collab. Above the bright comfortable-looking sitting room looms black sky and ominous dead tree – signalling the war zone exterior when ironically there’s a war indoors as well.
First on stage is Messenger, played by Ethan Moorhouse and recently seen in Guy Ritchie’s MobLand. He pulls no punches describing warring England as “scorched earth with f***ing oat milk”. Pickett’s script throughout Bloodsport is as coarse as it is sharply witty. Fast electric lines, staccato-style with expletives and jokes; Moorhouse is especially fun, even though his speeches were often disturbing. You never know whether one of Pickett’s characters will brandish a mozzarella stick or a rifle.
Laura Aikman, a familiar face from Gavin & Stacey, makes her professional onstage debut. She’s Helen’s former best friend, Cee, clad in a pearl-edged cream dress, as form-fitting as armour – “I’ve not got my Spanx on for nothing!” – she had excellent stage presence from the outset, conveying something of The Handmaid’s Tale’s commander’s wife as much as a TOWIE matriarch. Her character’s varying rapport between her ditzy cleaner, unpleasant husband and her best friend changed track seamlessly.
Cee is a character created by Pickett, to reflect the consequences of Helen’s triggering of a long-lasting war, here with riots in places like Hull and Preston instead of ancient Greece. I’m not sure why she was named “Cee” but when several characters addressed her by name, it wasn’t immediately obvious they weren’t calling out the word “See” instead.
Michelle Dockery, best known as Lady Mary in ITV’s Downton Abbey, has a role here more similar to her appearance in The Gentlemen; Pickett presents Helen as a “goer” who bolted with her lover, although this will be unpicked later; “this sounds a bit slut-shaming to me,” she remarks.
Although initially Dockery cowers in a bloodied pastel satin camisole, much of the play presents her as a strutting Boudicca-like warrior. Dockery’s black Lara Croft gear contrasts nicely with Aikman’s slick Barbie doll mini dress and high heels. Whilst these two women’s interaction is billed as the core of Bloodsport, there are multiple layers and relationships in the story.
One of these is the late arrival of Helen’s daughter Hermione, played by Emma Monnickendam. With convincing pregnancy bump (maybe she really is, I don’t know), Monnickendam delivers a lengthy impassioned monologue about mother daughter relationships that stood out. Hermione, as in the myth, is now grown up once Helen returns; Pickett’s script unravels the anger and hurt caused by the separation in a relatable way.
The baddy is Cee’s “war criminal of a husband”, Mario, played by Gerard Monaco recently seen in BBC’s Dear England. His arrival onstage brought instant menace and reminded me of Ben Kingsley’s angry gangster in Sexy Beast. Although not on stage that much, he was immediately believable as a controlling spouse who might blow up at any moment. That said, the trigger-happy conclusion is likely to be a surprise.
Bloodsport is also Lisa Spirling’s directorial debut since becoming Stratford East’s Artistic Director. Her previous directing includes Vardy vs Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. There are stylistic parallels between that and Bloodsport with two modern working class women at loggerheads.
Nicola T Chang’s sound and composition brings a thumping urgency; a punching rhythm that sometimes settles into rapid heartbeat. More than once, the audience jolted upright by the soundtrack or Zeynep Kepekli’s sudden on-off lighting.
Bloodsport left me wondering whether its portrayal of English civil war was far fetched or worryingly prescient; how wars are easily started but difficult to end, how often male pride lights the touch paper.
In transplanting the Trojan War to culture war in modern day England, Bloodsport focusses on male violence towards female autonomy, and primarily examines this rather than race, religion and gender identity. A simmering parallel race war is later inferred by Dani and Luke; it all gets a bit Gilead when you’ve got a squaddie in your living room, there’s more than one battle going on.
Pickett’s 1536 is already in production for a BBC adaptation and she is also co-writing a Joan of Arc film with Baz Luhrmann. Bloodsport would translate well on screen; do not be surprised if it ends up there too.
Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy – until 10 October
Stratford East
Gerry Raffles Square
Stratford
London
Looking for something different? Check our off West End theatre previews
Leave a Reply