Marianne Elliott’s production is a masterpiece of deep feeling and cutting intelligence, an irresistible blend of magic, psychological insight and moral judgment. This is a gothic fairy tale, and Rae Smith’s dark, thrilling set, with just a touch of Piranesi, sets its mood of apprehension and excitement. This is a tale of healing and scepticism. Will all really be well if it ends well? Clare Higgins is the Countess, shrewd, warm-hearted and imperious, a smiling empress who can both love and command. George Rainsford’s Bertram is a young bull, spoilt and immature, with the kind of coarseness you can grow out of if you are lucky. Michelle Terry’s Helena is the moral focus of the play: she’s both vulnerable and stubborn, tortured, driven and finally justified by her own wounded heart. This is a beautiful performance, touching but unsentimental, a portrait of a woman who can give herself, but not as a victim. The ending, like a court scene, presided over by Oliver Ford Davies’s wise, grumpy King, leaves you with a magisterial and cunning ambiguity, a sense of the brooding openness of life, of which Shakespeare is such a master.

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