arguing that Margaret is "a Dark Lady if ever there was one - and prototype for Cressida, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth - was Shakespeare's first "heroine" - if such she can be called [...] It takes four plays to make her one of the great female characters in Shakespeare - and the full-length portrait has been seen only in The Wars of the Roses cycle - but she has facets that are not touched on in any other." Ashcroft saw the scene from 2 Henry VI where she appears on-stage carrying the head of her lover, the Duke of Suffolk, as pivotal to both the character's development and her own understanding of Margaret; "I came to realise why this scene was of paramount importance - for later in what is one of the greatest and certainly most horrific scenes [...] when Margaret wipes the blood of York's son on the Duke's face [...] I found that seemingly impossible bestial act to be credible as the result of the violence that has been perpetrated on her lover." John Russell Brown singled out Ashcroft's performance during this scene as especially noteworthy, arguing that her performance, with its mixture of hatred, violence and laughter, "was a portrayal of weakness in cruelty, helplessness in victory [...] the cruel humour of the lines was played close to hysteria: "I prithee grieve to make me merry" was an almost necessary request to excuse Margaret's impulse towards helpless laughter, a physical and emotional relief and a breakdown of control." Writing in the Financial Times, T.C. Worsley commented, "I shall long remember the speech she makes to her dispirited followers making their last stand. She summons some inner strength from out of the weariness of defeat and, though she speaks like a lioness, the beast in her, you can feel, is already dead." Randall Martin wrote Another especially celebrated aspect of the production was the set, designed by John Bury, who used the work of Karl von Appen and Caspar Neher as his primary visual inspiration. Bury constructed the set primarily from plated steel, even the walls and floors were covered in textured metal, giving the entire stage a cold, metallic appearance. At the back of the stage was a steel trellis and movable walls of triangular shape covered with riveted plates. T.C. Worlsey commented of the set that "we seem to be claustrophobically caught between two swinging metal