It starts with a blood curdling scream. Helen of Troy in the 21st century, 20 years after the fall of Troy.

Helen (Tamsin Shasha) wears a mask because of plastic surgery, she pops pills, and is minded by a guard (Tyler Fayose).

She is a virtual prisoner as the stage design suggested, a prisoner of her perfect beauty.  "My beauty is a curse, a death trap," it is also her only means of survival and she knows it. 

Helen's fear and vulnerability is vibrantly portrayed by Shasha on a knife's edge.

It takes an exceptional performance to convey an exceptional woman, Shasha combines both the frailty and the strength that made Helen such a fully qualified survivor." I'll outlive you all," she bellows, and at the very moment when her world is most threatened she orders the guard to get his "filthy boots off my bed".

Helen could use her submissiveness to control even the most dominant, violent and psychotic of men.

Fayose is a perfect foil as her guard, and although he is mute the performance is totally about the tension between the two characters.

The aerial sequences are exquisitely choreographed and executed to reflect this power struggle.

Helen is an inspired piece of theatre, meticulously presented.