REVIEW: ODYSSEY: A HEROIC PANTOMIME by John Savournin at Jermyn Street Theatre 23 Nov - 31 Dec 2023

‘all the gusto and exuberance any festive audience could possibly want ’ ★★★1/2

Panto season is upon is and what better way to refresh an aged story form than by reaching for one of the oldest of them all. While it seems fairly likely someone somewhere has used the Odyssey as the basis for a panto before, it’s a long way from streets of gold and glass slippers and preternaturally competent cats.

Mount Olympus, then, and five Greek Gods and Godesses have noticed that Odysseus hasn’t made it back yet from the Trojan War, misdelivered as he was by hopeless Hermes (Tamoy Phipps, filling the ‘Buttons’ role) into the hands of the evil Circe (Rosie Strobel, boo, hiss) who might just have turned him into an oinking pig by now. To Ithaca, then, where Penelope’s (Emily Cairns) fed up waiting for him to head home, sets off with a friendly pantomime Trojan Horse (Meriel Cunningham) to bring home the bacon.

The five-strong all-female cast (Amy J Payne doubles as Poseidon and the Cyclops Poly-fee-fi-femus) give it all the gusto and exuberance any festive audience could possibly want as an avalanche of songs, chases and panto staples including audience participation and oh-no-it-isn’ts. Some of the gags are more ancient than Homer (what’s a Grecian urn, anyone?), and, as ever at Jermyn Street, there’s an inventive set that helps make the most of the tiny playing space.

And it’s all performed with skill and pace that make for an enjoyable night out. The Quest to find Odysseus is an excellent peg for a panto story, too, but the whole thing doesn’t quite soar, finding it at times difficult to navigate between the Scylla of high energy and the Charybdis of over-the-top. Curiously, for a form that relies on frantic acting and nod-and-a-wink to the audience, it could take the mugging down a notch and rely more on some genuinely funny gags and ideas and the charm and talents of its ensemble, particularly Cairns and Cunningham (whose scene-stealing Dionysus is the show’s infrequent, brilliant highlight).

Original, familiar, laugh-out-loud at times, groan at times, walk in feeling the clutch of a damp, dark London evening and walk out with a grin on your face. Panto season, marmite I know, but if you like this sort of thing (and I do), it’s the sort of thing you’ll very much like.

Images: Alex Brenner

ODYSSEY: A HEROIC PANTOMIME by John Savournin at Jermyn Street Theatre 23 November to 31 December 2023

Box Office: 020 7287 2875

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Produced by Charles Court Opera

Reviewer David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow), Better Together (Jack Studio, London). Those and others performed across Scotland, Wales and England, and in Australia, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland and Belgium. Awards include Write Now Festival prize, Constance Cox award, SCDA best depiction of Scottish life, and twice Bruntwood longlisted.