Theatre review: The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead

To complete the Homeric theme of the Swanamaker's pre-season we have writer Simon Armitage and director Nick Bagnall, who gave us a play based on the Iliad in 2014, now returning to tackle the Odyssey. I wasn't sure what to expect as I found their take on The Last Days of Troy a somewhat redundant addition to the many other versions of the story, but for The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead Armitage has found a new angle and explored it well. In modern-day Britain, a few weeks before a general election, Smith (Colin Tierney,) a minister popular with the people but not necessarily so with his own party, wants to go home to Cumbria for his son's 18th birthday. But the Prime Minister (Simon Dutton) co-opts him to show his face at a World Cup qualifier in Istanbul. England win the match but in the aftermath Smith and his friends get caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time - attempting to break up a violent brawl, a photo taken from the wrong angle makes it look like the minister dealt a killer blow, and it goes viral.

Theatre review: Land of Our Fathers

Another play about miners at the start of the Thatcher years, although any influence she might have on the men's fates is a purely metaphorical one in Chris Urch's Land of Our Fathers. But it's hard not to see a symbolism in the play opening on the election day that would first take Thatcher to power, with the roof caving in on six Welsh miners, leaving them trapped in a tunnel. As with Wonderland, we have a newcomer to the job to guide us into the darkness, but not only has Mostyn's (Joshua Price) first day been disastrous, the others are quick to point the finger at him for causing the accident. After a shaky start Mostyn manages to befriend the oldest member of the team, Bomber (Clive Merrison,) who in true Lethal Weapon style is days away from retirement when disaster strikes. As they wait for rescue they try to dig themselves out from the inside, led by Chopper (Patrick Brennan.) but the boss' ineffectiveness and impatience may be in part because of a secret he's keeping.

Theatre review: A Handful of Stars

A crumbling pool hall in 1980s Ireland is the setting for a number of disappointing lives to play out in Billy Roche's A Handful of Stars: Its owner Paddy (Michael O’Hagan) is elderly and in bad health, and mocked even by the local police for how little his life has amounted to. Retired boxer Stapler (Keith Duffy) is attempting a comeback which isn't going too well, and only proving that his best days are behind him. And Tony (Brian Fenton) is about to get married to a girl he got pregnant; his biggest ambition in life is to be invited into the Members' Room of the pool hall, where there's a full-sized snooker table and nicer chairs. In the middle of all this is Tony's friend Jimmy (Ciarán Owens,) who turns up for a game most nights. Witty and energetic, Jimmy has however observed how trapped in their lives the men in his town are, and knows he's no different.

Theatre review: Debris

You've got to feel sorry for actors sometimes, when they're faced with audiences who seem to be there for no other reason than to get in the way of them doing their job. Thanks to the worst-behaved audience I've sat in for a long time, I don't feel like I can give a totally clear review of Debris at Southwark Playhouse. Dennis Kelly is a writer whose work I've had wildly variable reactions to in the past, and his debut play, revived here for its tenth anniversary, is bleak, non-linear, non-literal, and narrated by a pair of characters whose word we definitely can't take as gospel. So having an audience consisting mostly of rowdy teenagers determined to treat it as a panto, and constantly trying to wrong-foot the actors, wasn't conducive to understanding or judging the play at its best.

Theatre review: Larisa and the Merchants

The effervescent Larisa (Jennifer Kidd) is poor but popular with the men of her small port town on the Volga; her lack of a dowry is the only reason she's not yet married. Her relationship with the aristocratic Sergei (Sam Phillips) ended in heartbreak and, on the rebound, she's accepted the proposal of the smitten, penniless civil servant Karandyshev (Ben Addis.) When Sergei returns to town there's clearly still something between the two, but as Larisa is tempted to leave her fiancé for a man who's already betrayed her once, she doesn't know how close she is to its happening again: Having lost most of his money, Sergei has agreed to marry an heiress so he can restore his fortunes, and living in the style to which he's accustomed will always trump any feelings he might have for Larisa.