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.
