Woolf Works at Royal Ballet: Wayne McGregor chases big ideas with electric sensation

The Waves lies behind the final act, backed by Ravi Deepres’ charcoal-toned film of slow-rolling waters. Osipova’s character has relinquished the struggle to keep going. As children and adults fill the stage, she’s an auntie left out of the youngsters’ games, a hollow-eyed figure lost in the throng. Yet the emotional core of this act is Bracewell’s tender husband: darting around Osipova, trying to keep her from slipping through his fingers. He connects us back to Gillian Anderson’s earlier voiceover, reading Woolf’s suicide note. “If anybody could have saved me,” she wrote to her husband Leonard, “it would have been you.” It’s an achingly sombre conclusion.