MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
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Two Ladies, Bridge Theatre, London
Perceptive insights on first ladies' subservient relationships with powerful presidents
Striking similarity: Zoe Wanamaker as Helen in Two Ladies
[Helen Maybanks] 
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
LOCKED down in a conference room overlooking the Cote d’Azur, the wives of the US and French presidents await the outcome of a summit conference debating joint military retaliation for terrorist acts in the US.
Zoe Wanamaker’s Helen, the previously married, considerably older wife and former teacher of her husband, bears striking similarities to Brigitte Macron while Zrinka Cvitesic as Sophia, the Yugoslavian born ex-model, is not a million miles from Melania Trump.
And their relationships with their husbands also mirror the current first ladies’ apparent roles — the first plays an active part in presidential political life, the latter is a trophy wife to be flaunted in public.
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