Stirring moments lighten three-hour epic

THE LAST DAYS OF TROY

(Royal Exchange, Manchester, to June 7)

POET and playwright (and one-time Oldham probation officer) Simon Armitage is the latest man to have a go at condensing the epic poem of the last 50 days or so of Troy into a manageable lump of stage drama.

The problem with the story is that it wasn’t written as modern drama — which means to make it exciting and watchable, the writer and director (in this case Nick Bagnall) have to come up with an interesting idea of their own, something that binds the story and remains true to the source material.

That doesn’t fully happen here: Armitage’s retelling of the hatred between Greeks and Trojans following the kidnap of Helen, the 10-year siege, the Trojan Horse and the eventual infighting between the sides is left pretty much to its own devices — but then it is an epic tale with rather a lot going on...

That does make the evening a little wayward and long at almost three hours, since for much of the time we are merely listening to characters making speeches of one kind or another.

Rather than come up with an interesting interpretation, Armitage has returned to the original material and has then cut most of the subsidiary characters and events, leaving the bare bones of kidnap, revenge and murder.

That’s not to say it doesn’t work very well at times — particularly when the stage ensemble marches and makes a lot of noise.

The Trojan Horse itself is a curious, decidedly non-equine shape. The “horse” is a large wooden cylinder that descends to stage level to reveal its hidden doors as the Greeks tumble out.

There are some strong performances from a cast that has many newcomers to the Exchange, Jake Fairbrother as the slightly mad Achilles and Simon Harrison as the war-mongering Trojan prince Hector foremost among them.

David Birrell is brutally no-nonsense as Greek king Agamemnon and Lily Cole a little ineffectual but beautiful as Helen. Richard Bremmer is a resigned Zeus, king of the Gods, whose meddling helps to extend the war and who eventually is seen in semi-retirement, no longer interested in determining man’s fate.

The world premiere nonetheless has a lot of stirring moments and if you’re in the mood for war and gore it will be suitably diverting.