Enter Achilles
Lloyd Newson

Enter Achilles automatically triggers, to an audience, the connotations of the Achilles heel or Achilles tendon which from Greek mythology has gained the label as area of weakness. However, Enter Achilles was initially an idea provoked by Lloyd Newsons own experiences. In the early 1980’s Newson injured his hamstring and Achilles tendon in a ballet class he was taking. Whilst hospitalised only Newsons Female and homosexual friends came to visit him and show their worry and concern. This consequently led Lloyd to do some reading into male sexuality and male femininity. He was intrigued by the interaction of men to other men and how heterosexual men find it extremely difficult to express their feminine or …show more content…

It is seen as a fallacy of which they can bury all their insecurities and they cling onto it to prove their masculinity.

All the characters in the piece (bar one) find it very hard to be in touch with their feminine and emotional side, “The beer proves to be a double edged sword” (anon, company resource pack), one the one hand it proves to be a relaxant and allows some of the men to find this feminine more explorative side on the other a way to relieve all their pent up aggression on anyone defying normality.

At the start of the piece we are introduced and a voyeur in the life of the landlord in the flat above the Pub, but he has a sordid secret. He is fornicating with a blow-up female sex toy. It becomes apparent through the way he manipulates the doll and interacts with it that he has developed certain feelings towards this inhuman inanimate object which he personifies to the point he believes it is real. The first question of male masculinity is where he rejects the phone call (girlfriend? A potential girlfriend?). The fact he rejects the call to favour the inanimate blow-up doll makes u as an audience question…Is this doll the only “woman” he can relate to? Would real living, breathing, thinking women be too much to contend with in Thatcher’s Britain? He favours the blow-up doll because it is easily manipulated and unable to form opinions