Boudicca's Babes, East Anglian Daily Times

They don't make ‘em like her any more.   She has a sharp tongue and an even sharper sword that she can swing with the best of men.   She's also a woman without mercy screaming for revenge because the Romans have whipped the skin off her back and raped her two daughters.

Boudicca has a right to her anger.   Her newly-dead husband, king of the Iceni and free to rule his people as long as he stays within the rules, laid down by the conquering invaders, has tried to pull a fast one in his will.  The queen and her girls know nothing of this but suffer the wicked punishments which are carried out in front of her subjects. With the Roman heavy mob under Paulinus away in Wales slaughtering the Druids, Boudicca seizes the opportunity for retribution and the story carries us into a very modern 61AD - with black marketers dealing in second-hand spears and swords as the queen rearms her tribe.

Greg Lyons and director Ivan Cutting show the Iceni problems as just like those many face today, especially the friction between mothers and daughters.   But it's a moot point whether dressing Boudicca in a pointy Madonna breastplate, the Roman procurator in a 50s cinema usher's uniform and the girls in High Street flares slit to the thigh, helps or hinders this aim.

Nevertheless, this is an imaginative wrinkle on a distant bit of history and well acted by a cast of seven who cleverly dip in and out of a number of characters on a bold but simple set.   Pat Whymark's music is wonderfully effective at underpinning much of the action and adds considerably to the mood of the piece, which has a lot of humour as well as drama.   Marina Morgan is a good Boudicca, always exuding sex and power and moving with style from loving wife and distraught widow to an avenging demon close to the edge of madness.

Melanie Bradley, a chip off the old Boudicca block, and Melisande Cook, who falls for a Roman, are the ever-warring sisters very ably backed by Gary Calandro, Martin Craig, Martin Belville and Norman McDonald.   Sadly we don't see any authentic battle scenes - because in those days the Iceni fought in the nude, women shoulder-to-shoulder with the men, but the play ends with a shocking tableau of death.

David Henshall, EADT