After Miss Julie

Rave reviews: Helen Baxendale, Kelly Reilly and Richard Coyle

It only opened on Tuesday night, but already Patrick Marber's adaptation of After Miss Julie has been getting rave reviews.

Kelly Reilly's performance was described as utterly transfixing, The Independent newspaper said it was "horrible and hypnotic".

Meanwhile the Guardian's Michael Billington said "It is the sense of Miss Julie as a lost soul that is beautifully caught in Kelly Reilly's astonishing performance."

Both Kelly Reilly and Helen Baxendale were live on Breakfast, click on the link at the top of the page to see that interview

Swedish playwright August Strindberg penned Miss Julie in 1888; the story tells of an aristocratic young heroine who engages in a dangerous mating game with her father's valet.

Kelly Reilly plays the aristocratic Miss Julie, Richard Coyle is John, chauffer to Julie's father; and Helen Baxendale plays Christine the cook.

Removed from its original location in Sweden, the drama has been re-set in a country house just outside London on the eve of the Labour Landslide victory in July 1945.

The three main characters all have their reasons wanting to move forward - the play is set at the end of the war with a return to freedom and a chance to enjoy life.

This forms one of the main theme's of the play; as the plot develops Christine and John are drawn closer together yet threatened with the prospect of being torn apart.

Kelly Reilly's character comes from an aristocracy that is crumbling, and finds herself lacking sufficient emotional contact to deal with her situation.

Thanks to the way she was brought up, she is left with a somewhat warped attitude.

Kelly says: "It's incredibly destructive. There's violence there's degradation and huge neediness from her."

"She understands about power - she knows what sexual power can do to men."

Working class

Kelly never set out to become an actress, her dad's a policeman and her mum a secretary and she describes her grounding as very much working class, she went to the local comprehensive school.

"I never liked school. I never shone, I hated exams and I failed everything. I didn't have any confidence and was very very shy."

But school did give her an opportunity to try drama and a whole new world opened up.

Following a stint at drama school she was spotted by an agent and got a part in Prime Suspect alongside Helen Mirren.

More small TV parts followed, then she played Elaine in The Graduate then scored her biggest hit alongside Minnie Driver and Matthew Perry in Sexual Perversity in Chicago.

Even now she's established Kelly says she still gets star struck

Helen Baxendale

Helen Baxendale as Christine in 'After Miss Julie'

By contrast, Helen Baxendale had been more keen for a career in show business and originally set out to be a dancer.

Having switched to acting, she was cast in the 1994 black comedy Cardiac Arrest for the BBC - she played Dr Claire Maitland.

Appearances in the Cordelia Gray mysteries followed and then she was cast in ITV's Cold Feet until her character was killed off just before the series ended in March this year.

She also had a guest role as the English girlfriend of Ross in the hit series Friends, but fell pregnant soon after joining the show.

Helen had two babies between filming and there was speculation that she would take on less work.

In practice she is now more keen to pick her roles carefully and balance the time she spends with her family.