A colleague I bumped into told me he had just seen Oedipus – It was amazing, and you will never see the twist coming, but I won’t spoil it for you. This worried me greatly, knowing this was a ‘new political take’ and generally not having had the best experiences with re-writes of the classics. I went to the theatre concerned whether this will have as much to do with the real Oedipus as The Other Place had with Antigone.

Fortunately, that was not the case and seems more likely that my colleague had simply never come across the myth and was expecting neither patricide nor incest. But although he caused me some anxiety, I am grateful to him. Anticipating the twist made me pay very close attention to everything that was happening on stage. This meant I was picking up on all the clever hints and forewarnings: the son covering his father’s eyes, the father lecturing his son about acceptance for all kinds of love to name but a few.

In my opinion, this was a good re-write that kept close enough to the original story whilst making the narrative more current, modelling Oedipus on Obama, turning Laius into an Epstein. It could in fact have gone even further. I am not suggesting replacing the baby left in the wood with DNA testing and a forage on ancestry.com. However, it is the opening sequence of filmed news footage that sets in motion everything that is to come. Oedipus commits to cleaning up politics and makes two promises of ‘radical transparency’ to his electorate – he will publish his birth certificate and investigate the death of the previous ruler. There was therefore no need to bring in Tiresias, the blind soothsayer of Thebes, who not only seemed very out of place in the modern surroundings but was also somewhat redundant.

On the other hand, shifting the dynamic quickly away from the tension between Creon and Oedipus and allowing the focus to move to married couple worked very well. The love between the two main characters dominates the stage – I wonder if there was one married couple in the audience who did not envy their connection – intellectual, grounded, warm, supportive and honest. Three grown up children between them, yet they remain passionate and hungry for one another’s touch and embrace. They are electric.

And it is the depth with which their love and intimacy is portrayed that makes the fated ending so heart wrenching. When realisation dawns, we are all left wondering how could they possibly reconcile feelings that cannot be denied with the reality they now comprehend. This is painted most beautifully in the scene when they have to undress in front of one another standing on either side of the clothes rack. Embarrassed, conscious of their own bodies, they stand like Adam and Eve with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil between them.

But the sexual attraction between them cannot “unexist” and one of the final scenes has them writhing on the floor each fighting an inner battle whilst kissing and touching, the forbidden yearning seeping through their pores.

This desperate desire is even more poignant because of how Jocasta’s story has been developed. She was not just sold out by her father to a significantly older man, he knowingly gave her over to a pedophile. Corin, the lifelong aide, lusts after her and cannot stop himself from kissing her neck. Even her brother appears to be on the wrong side of tactile. She is a woman that has been tossed around by all the men in her life. No wonder that when she finally finds her true love, the man who undoes all those wrongs, she clings onto him ferociously. And it is so hard not to root for her, hope for a twist on the mother of all twists, hope for the decent politician to win and remain decent, hope that love will conquer all.

But the digital clock counting down to the result of the election is a reminder that whether we like it or not, the ending is inevitable. And whether we like it or not, an entire life can come apart in less than two hours.