One in the eye for tragedy

The play takes an episode from Homer's The Odyssey in which Odysseus, en route back from defeating the Trojans, washes up in Sicily intent on sourcing some food. Instead, he encounters a herd of satyrs enslaved to the one-eyed monster Cyclops and ends up plotting how to emancipate them and arrange his own escape.

Willmott makes no concessions to academic purism here and the production is all the better for it. Modern popular culture references are merrily invoked: the satyrs frequently launch into boy band dance routines; the running joke is whether Odysseus is Will Young; the sheep to which the satyrs tend resemble a line of chorus girls.

The humour is frequently at the low end - lots of sheep jokes and the odd fart - but the approach stays faithful to Euripedes's original intention: this is theatre set on playing to the gallery.

Willmott cleverly weaves in a rather interesting idea about Cyclops (represented superbly as a huge paper puppet) as the classic monster figure and also the classic outsider, while Nicholas Osmond's strapping Odysseus makes a fabulously arrogant hero. Generously performed, often very funny and always lucidly told, this is theatre you would happily pay to see.

The Steam Industry At The Scoop 2006: Cyclops!
The Scoop at More London
More London Riverside, SE1 2DB