Now it\u2019s 2026, and the world has (to some extent) caught up with Kane\u2019s brilliance. The latest director to wrestle with her writing is Rebecca Frecknall, spearheading a new staging of Cleansed at north London\u2019s Almeida Theatre<\/a>. Frecknall is the outgoing associate director at the Almeida, and Cleansed is her last in a run of shows there that included A Streetcar Named Desire (with Paul Mescal), Romeo & Juliet<\/a>, and The Duchess of Malfi. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d she tells me, over Zoom. \u201cCleansed doesn\u2019t have the performance history that a lot of other plays I\u2019ve directed do, and there\u2019s something freeing in that. People have this idea around it, that it\u2019s a brutal play, with a lot of violence in it. There\u2019s a harshness to it. And that\u2019s valid, but it\u2019s a play that\u2019s very much about love, and exploring the limits, possibilities and transcendent capabilities of love and connection.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s sitting next to the actor Leo Bill (Taboo; The White Queen). Bill, who previously acted in Frecknall\u2019s Malfi in 2019, fronts the cast as Tinker \u2013 a sadistic puppetmaster at a hellish, lawless university campus. His subjects, or victims, include a gay couple whose love is tested with extreme violence, and a woman grieving the loss of her brother, with whom she had an incestuous relationship. \u201cIt\u2019s hard work, unusual work,\u201d remarks Bill, when I ask how rehearsals are going. The play, he says, felt \u201chardcore, in a very supreme way. In a way that I hadn’t really experienced before \u2013 and in a very British way as well. In terms of what was put on in theatre a lot of the time, it felt radical and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHardcore\u201d is surely a fair enough adjective. A trigger warning for the production suggests a sort of \u201cI\u2019ll have everything on the menu\u201d approach to transgression \u2013 it warns that Cleansed includes \u201cprolonged nudity, torture, mutilation, sexual violence and incest, suicide, and drug abuse\u201d \u2013 and I\u2019ve abridged that list by half. It\u2019s par for the course, I suppose: this is after all a play that features rats eating limbs and tongues being severed. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the fourth major production of Cleansed to be staged in London, and the first in a decade. During the previous outing, directed by Katie Mitchell at the National Theatre in 2016, the shock factor made its way into headlines: the BBC reported that five audience members fainted during previews of the show, with dozens walking out. Frecknall says that she would be \u201creally surprised\u201d if the phenomenon repeats itself here. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly not the aim,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think it was Katie\u2019s aim when she did it at the National. People have physical reactions to all types of works; it\u2019s just some get reported more than others.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Mitchell claimed that her cast had suffered \u201cstrange\u201d and \u201cextreme\u201d nightmares during the show\u2019s run. \u201cI thought I would [be the same],\u201d admits Frecknall, \u201cbut I\u2019ve actually slept better at night. Just because it\u2019s so tiring \u2013 the level of concentration required, but also the creative energy, and the physical demands. You\u2019re trying to stage the unstageable multiple times over.\u201d<\/p>\n Bill credits the strong support system among his collaborators with helping to mitigate the gloom of the material. \u201cWe talked a lot about not taking it home with you,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not the violence so much \u2013 it\u2019s the intense state you\u2019re in throughout. But at the weekend, I did have these waves of sadness that would just sort of hit me. So you try and do nice things\u2026 I went to the zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n The beauty in \u2018Cleansed\u2019 is so much more important than whether somebody faints or not<\/p>\n Leo Bill<\/p>\n![\"Lizzy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Almeida-Theatre_Cleansed_Lizzie-Connolly-and-Leo-Bill_Credit--Marc-Brenner.jpeg\")
Lizzy Connolly and Leo Bill in \u2018Cleansed\u2019 (Marc Brenner)<\/p>\n
![\"Pearl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Almeida-Theatre_Cleansed_Pearl-Chanda-and-Leo-Bill_Credit--Marc-Brenner.jpeg\")
Pearl Chanda and Bill in \u2018Cleansed\u2019 (Marc Brenner)<\/p>\n