Former supermodel and actress Lily Cole, “excels while making her stage acting debut in Simon Armitage’s stylish The Last Days of Troy“, wrote Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph.

Staged last summer at Shakespeare’s Globe, following a run at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, it has been described by some as a a “highlights package” of Greek history.

The Last Day’s of Troy completes Homer’s Iliad with award winning poet and author Simon Armitages dramatisation, bringing the war to a brutal conclusion. It combined the essentials of Homer’s Iliad, bits from his Odyssey and elements from Virgil’s Aeneid.

Lily played Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world according to Greek myth. While technically not her stage debut, it was her first conventional production.  She previously appeared in the Old Vic’s annual 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Galas in which a group of high profile performers work with writers and directors to create a line up of new plays in just 24 hours.

“The former model, now a humanitarian campaigner is suitably enigmatic. Cole’s performance is deliberately restrained as she glides around the stage in an almost ghostly fashion… her gracious movement and distant stare are just what’s required,” wrote Henery Hitchings in the Evening Standard.

Some in the autograph game have found the same demeanour off stage, but I’ve always found Lily to be pleasant and accommodating on the few occasions I have met her. There’s a big difference between ‘racking’ her with 20 8x10s and asking her to sign a theatre sketch.