The Iliad, The Odyssey and All of Greek Mythology in 99 Minutes or Less

So regular visitors will know I failed in The Iliad readalong earlier this year. When looking for something to see at the Edinburgh Fringe on Friday, this condensed version of Homer’s epics seemed the natural choice.

Performed by a Missouri group from American High School Theatre Festival, it started off a bit shouty but was an entertaining and quite funny 99 minutes. The actual script was very well put together and obviously written by someone with a good knowledge of Greek mythology. Different characters are differentiated by different props and occasionally different voices. The girl playing Nestor and Achilles (among others) was the best and in true theatre tradition, the sole male actor got to play Hera (nice wig). I think the creation story was my favourite part, and Pandora was spot on.

Annoyingly Iliad is spelled wrong, (Illiad if you’re searching for it) in the Fringe program (festival organisers are to blame, not the theatre group). I don’t know if they’ll be doing any other venues in the UK, but if you’re from Missouri, check them out! It was definitely worth the £5 ticket price.