She is also a symbol for female actors, both of what is possible and of how much they still have to fight for, when most plays and films still feature more male than female characters and work famously dries up for older women unless they are among a lucky handful of national treasures. Cush Jumbo, star of the Royal Exchange's production, says "it's a role a lot of actresses have on their list – if they have a wish list – because it's a very challenging part. It's Ibsen's Rosalind [the heroine of Shakespeare's As You Like It], I suppose. You never leave the stage and the journey she goes on is epic."
"I would compare it to Hamlet," says Morahan, whose interpretation has been described as a career-changing breakthrough – in the way that Hamlet and now Iago have been for her exact contemporary Rory Kinnear (both are 35). Janet McTeer experienced a similar effect two decades ago when her tempestuous, 6ft Nora, deeply in love with her husband and completely broken by his betrayal, won plaudits in London and then on Broadway, where the New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley called McTeer's "the single most compelling performance I have ever seen".