Playing at C Venues from August 10-25 at 15:30
Ithaca, Ancient Greece. Odysseus has set sail for Troy and his illustrious adventures, leaving behind his wife, Penelope, and her twelve doomed maids. When he finally returns, after years at sea, he ruthlessly hangs the innocent maids. Whilst this was a mere footnote in Homer’s Odyssey, Margaret Atwood has given these women a voice, in her dark yet witty play, The Penelopiad.
Inspired by the works of Frantic Assembly and DV8, this energetic, fast-paced and challenging physical theatre production weaves Atwood’s witty dialogue with movement and music to tell the story of those Homer left behind. The play explores class and gender divide, ensuring the relevancy of the play in 21st century Britiain, and bringing the play a political edge that is somewhat lacking from modern theatre. This re-imagining puts a modern punch back into an ancient tale. Featuring Georgie Henley, famous for playing Lucy Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia film series, as Eurycleia, this production of The Penelopiad comes to the Edinburgh Fringe off the back of a highly successful run in Cambridge.
Cambridge Shortlegs was established in March 2014 by Marthe de Ferrer and Alex Cartlidge, both students at the University of Cambridge, an establishment renowned for its high quality student theatre scene. Their ethos is to create theatre that does not flinch or sanitise, theatre that is uncompromising, confrontational and intense, that tackles uncomfortable and unsettling taboo subjects, that challenges politically the expectations of Cambridge student drama. The Penelopiad is the perfect representation of this vision.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
