Radio review: Andromache

17th century French playwrights had a trend for recreating the themes and styles of Ancient Greek theatre, but while the originals are regularly seen as ripe for restaging and reinvention, I haven't seen a Racine play since 2012's Berenice. This Radio 3 adaptation by Edward Kemp, first broadcast in 2017, is one of those that literally went back to the same source of Greek mythology, although the story strand explored in Andromache was entirely obscure to me (and seems largely contradictory to some of the better-known stories.) It's Trojan War: The Next Generation as, a year after the sacking of Troy, the children of the victorious Greek generals try to tie up the remaining threads. So Pyrrhus (Alex Lanipekun,) son of Achilles and his successor as King of Epirus, has been betrothed to Hermione (Susannah Fielding,) daughter of Helen and Menelaus, for some time.

But he keeps putting off their marriage because he's actually in love with Andromache (Tanya Moodie,) Hector's widow. She's not quite so keen, given that his father killed her husband, but Pyrrhus has a trump card in her young son: Technically the heir to the throne of Troy, the Greeks fear he'll grow up to be a figurehead for resistance, and want him dead; if Andromache marries Pyrrhus the boy will become his ward and get his protection. Orestes (Joel MacCormack) is the envoy sent to demand the child be handed over, but he has his own agenda as he's in love with Hermione himself. Orestes, Pyrrhus, Andromache and Hermione are each given an attendant (Gunnar Cauthery, Raad Rawi, Mia Soteriou and Rosie Hilal respectively,) with whom they share their machinations, and who are largely there to tell them their plans are awful but they have to support them because they're the boss. So we get the picture of how their conflicting personal and political aims will tangle everyone up in tragedy.

It's not always easy to reconcile this with the better-known version of the story, especially with MacCormack having played the same character in The Oresteia - right now Orestes should be overwhelmed with the news of his father's murder and the realisation that he's expected to kill his own mother, not be entirely consumed by a boner for his cousin - so I kind of thought of this as one of those slightly alternate-universe versions of the Trojan War that Euripides' Helen occupies, albeit a significantly less fluffy one. It's certainly a more convoluted story than the grim inevitability most original Greek tragedies occupy, and the story zig-zags wildly with every scene. The title character actually occupies relatively little stage time, with the most notable role instead going to Fielding as the utterly deranged, violently unpredictable Hermione. It's certainly something of an odd play pitched at a level of barely-controlled hysteria, but it's an interesting listen for all that; Jeremy Mortimer's production is... whatever you call the audio-only equivalent of modern dress, with the various plots and machinations taking place in dark corridors and rain-lashed cars, giving the play a moody atmosphere that draws you in.

Andromache by Jean-Baptiste Racine in a version by Edward Kemp is available until the 11th of October on BBC Sounds.

Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

Image credit: BBC.