Tue 27 – Sat 31 Oct
Eves 7.45pm
Thu & Sat mats 2.30pm
REVIEW
The show got off to an excellent start last night in Brighton’s Theatre Royal.
For those who didn’t study classics at school, Homer was an ancient Greek writing in the time of prehistory, legends about warrior heroes around 500 BC or earlier.
One of these centred on Odysseus who was king of small Greek island Ithaca.
He gathered a band of warriors and sailed to the fabled siege of Troy, a mythical city in Asia minor recently made famous in a film of that name with Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger.
After Troy fell the Greek heroes set sail for home. Homer’s play, the Odyssey, recounts Odysseus’ ten year return trip and his adventures with one eyed Cyclops and seductive sirens.
At the same time his wife Penelope dutifully stays at home fending off suitors who would take Odysseus’ place at King of Ithaca.
In this play writer Simon Armitage has blended a modern day prime minister, played by Simon Dutton and ably aided by Polly Frame, with Homer’s original.
A minister goes off the rails in Greece and disappears, his wife Penelope,( Susie Trayling) is besieged by reporters while her school aged son studies the Odyssey.
Colin Tierney plays both the missing minister and Odysseus.
The stage was particularly impressive with atmospheric lights and hilarious monsters and seductive women. The ship rocks up and down most convincingly.
The xenophobic Prime Minister’s rant about Europe being a Jurassic Park full of monsters, received spontaneous applause from a large section of the audience.
Read more in the Original Preview below:
Theatre Royal Brighton is delighted to announce that The Odyssey, a coproduction between English Touring Theatre and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, will run from Tuesday 27 – Saturday 31 October
A high ranking government minister with a colourful past is sent on a delicate diplomatic mission to Istanbul.
But when his trip ends up in a horrific bar room brawl, social media explodes and the enigmatic darling of a political party becomes Europe’s most wanted man overnight.
Chased by the authorities, damned by religious leaders, pursued by those looking for vengeance and head hunted by fanatics, his Odyssey begins.
Plunged into the ancient past, Odysseus must now contend with all the unworldly beings and unnatural phenomena that stand in his way.
The Cyclops, the Sirens, witches, whirlpools and flesh eating armies must all be overcome in the struggle for survival and the long voyage back to the present day.
Back at home, with her husband missing presumed dead, his wife Penelope and their young son are besieged by the press, ravenous for the full story.
Simon Armitage, Oxford Professor of Poetry, has published nine volumes of poetry He has won numerous awards and prizes and been shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Odyssey
Armitage’s 2012 non-fiction book Walking Home, an account of his troubadour journey along the Pennine Way, was a Sunday Times best-seller and was shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize.
Simon Armitage said “The new gods sit in Whitehall and Downing Street, no less image obsessed and power hungry than their ancient counterparts.
A latter day borderless Europe forms the backdrop to Odysseus’ travels, to a journey that begins at the confluence point of East and West, a place of conflict from the Siege of Troy to the present day.”
Associate Director of Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Nick Bagnall directs.
0844 871 7650*
*(bkg fees apply)
