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Beware of Greeks bearing laughs
Horrible Histories
Groovy Greeks/ Incredible Invaders
Birmingham Stage Company
Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
****
GROOVY Greeks
from the well-known children’s scholastic series
Horrible Histories
was all Greek to me! Zeus,
voiced by writer Terry Deary in top form, challenged the family of
theatre latecomers to fight the Minotaur, the Persians and more in a
beautifully staged recreation of some of the best-known Greek myths. Alice
(Hannah Boyce), Rob (Ashley Bowden), Mum ( Laura Dalglish) and Dad
(Chris Yarnell) worked hard playing all the parts. There are some great
ideas and great songs – I particularly liked the one about the four
humours. At
‘half-time’, we were advised to don specs so as not to be recognised by
the Minotaur – but they were 3D glasses and the effect was rather scary! Pummelled
by stones, shot at with spears and arrows, scorpions dangled above us,
it was a bit too realistic but added immensely to the ‘theatre’ – almost
meeting cinema in its attention to detail. Rob’s meeting with Ariadne
was lovely – her ball of twine to lead him safely home a ball of red
wool that made him sneeze. If you
were not into popular culture some of it wouldn’t have handles. For
example, Helen of Troy was Marge Simpson complete with big blue wig and
Homer was Paris luring her away from her husband. Aristotle, Pythagoras,
Socrates and Sophocles are confined in the Big Brother house and told to
cook a chicken (called Dave) with no fire, all great stuff… very clever
and very funny. The Hunger
Games described the Spartans’ attitude to child rearing, and Britain’s
Got Talent was the scene for the competition of the Gods – Athena’s rap
ousted Zeus with predictable consequences. The
audience was about half and half adults and children, and the best
reactions seemed to be round about the 8-10 years of age mark. And
speaking as one, though I have a History degree, who gleaned a bit of
easy history from 1066 and All That –
and ‘a good thing’ it was -
this new staging of the ‘Horrible
Histories’ is great fun and a perfect way to introduce children to the
fun (and etiquette) of theatre at the same time as learning a bit about
history. To 30-05-15 Jane Howard26-05-15 Groovy Greeks: Wednesday matinee, Thursday evening and Saturday evening Incredible Invaders: Wednesday evening, Thursday matinee, Friday evening and Saturday matinee.
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