★★★☆☆
Here’s the motto of this show — know your Homer. If you are well versed in the adventures of Odysseus, you will get far more out of Mark Bruce’s distinctive dance-theatre adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic. If not, it may take you a while to clock who is who and what is what.
Who is the snake-hipped villain with the dancing skeletons? Who is the sexy lady in little red booties with a snake tattoo? It’s takes a while to understand that we are in Hades and they (the scary duo of Christopher Akrill and Eleanor Duval) are the malevolent immortals who will stop at nothing to make Odysseus’s life a living hell. It’s a mistake for Bruce not to clarify his cast right from the start, though as the show goes on a kind of loopy narrative logic falls into place, even if the choreographer has played fast and loose with the original.
The Odyssey takes place in a spooky, smoke-filled room — it’s amazing how a little dry ice and a plethora of baby lightbulbs can create the right atmosphere. Bruce may be telling an ancient tale of gods and monsters but he is drawing parallels between their mythological world and our savage 21st-century one. Christopher Tandy’s brooding Odysseus isn’t so much a hero as a brutalised victim of a decade of war whose ten-year journey home finds him reacting with frightening cruelty to the obstacles before him.
Bruce establishes his protagonist’s back story by initially allowing him a sexy and provocative parting duet with Penelope, who then spends 20 years being pursued by power-crazed suitors seeking to inherit her husband's kingdom. The fear of losing everything he values — love, family, power — is etched into Tandy’s performance, while Hannah Kidd is quietly compelling as his long-suffering wife, each year of his absence scored into her back in blood.
Bruce imagines the trials of Odysseus as a bit Game of Thrones meets nightclub rave, but his magpie approach to choreography ensures that the dance is imaginative throughout the two-hour production. He can easily segue from silly — female dancing Santas — to shocking, as a male Santa (the Cyclops Polyphemus) opens fire on a crowd of innocents in a mass shooting.
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The set is simple and surprisingly evocative. The recorded soundtrack is eclectic and fun: from Tom Waits, Sonic Youth and Mark Lanegan to Scarlatti and Mozart. The hardworking cast of 11 evoke everyone on Odysseus’s journey — friend and foe — with equal conviction.
Box office: 020 7702 2789, to March 19, then touring to April 28