Effi o Blaenau

The visceral one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott by Welsh dramatist Gary Owen reimagined the sacrificial heroine Iphigenia from Greek tragedy as a young working-class woman who likes a drink and a laugh, defiant in the face of pity, condescension and curtain-twitching. Now it has been recreated as a blistering Welsh-language movie by director Marc Evans, who has co-written the screenplay with Owen, with a live-wire performance from Leisa Gwenllian as Effi, a child of austerity and the Covid lockdown, reclaiming her rights to immediate pleasure and happiness in the face of long-term deprivation.