Glorious set, glorious costumes, glorious props, glorious lighting and sound effects, glorious script, doubly glorious performances – yes, even without a comma, Oh Zeus is gloriously, out-of-this-world, all round good. As heavenly humour swoops us from the lofty heights of silky-sheeted Mount Olympus to hellish goings-on in the glowing underparts of Hades via earthy visits to the earthly Grecian Hotel Krapios it’s romping laughter and anachronisms all the way.
With three striking, raven-haired, black-lace-clad, wildly prancing Fates spinning out Destiny’s trajectory, a ridiculous narrative thread is pulled right through the piece as Zeus sets out to thwart the imminent marriage of his lanky lass of a lilac-clad daughter, Hebe, to a mere mortal, a hotel manager called Gregg (who so much wants not to be called Greggs but almost invariably is). In spite of Zeus being a thunderbolt-hurling god with a 100% power rating, he’s dogged by nothing but frustration every acrobatic step of the way and his every cunning plan goes awry.
Tip-top talent and carefully honed professionalism radiate from every quarter in the staging of this physical romp through a farcical story. Beauty shines in Stuart Billinghurst’s masterful lighting as we travel from the sun-drenched, blue skies of a package-holiday Aegean to a throbbing neon-red Hell, taking in various shades, mists, spotlights and a bit of time travel along the way. Sounds and music are likewise wonderfully deployed in big song numbers, in Zeus’s frustrated thunderbolts, for the firing of a big bazooka, toted by an old lady in a headscarf, and for berserk accelerations of bouzouki music. A bouzouki and a bazooka? Bazinga!
The costumes and props are delightfully joyful creations, featuring… a snaking, inflatable, pink Hydra with multiple, creepily smiling heads, a laughably gigantic body-double of little Greg, an immense ghetto-blaster, banana splits, bats out of Hell, poo-bags, a proliferation of babies, a glowing doorframe into and (bewilderingly) out of Hell, projectile toys, a swan pedalo and the dangling Brollies of Doom. Fi Russell’s brilliantly constructed, handsome set, meanwhile, transforms flawlessly from Zeus’s dark mountain top to a jagged-walled hotel with reception and bedroom with small bed and handy wardrobe, as well as to the realms of the Underworld, all the while preserving multi-level performance areas and versatile entrance and exit points galore via stairs, slipway, doors, wings and a window with a drop.
Al Dunn, Nick Blunt and Matt Freeman, the superhero performers of Exeter-based company, Le Navet Bete (The Daft Turnip, first planted in 2008 – or Stupid Dud in slang) populate the stage with dozens of engaging, endearing comic characters amidst well-paced onslaughts of witty wordplay, puns and innuendo (occasionally verging on tastelessly vulgar), farcical knockabout slapstick, corpsing (in more ways than one), well-sung songs, contributions from Michael from the front row and even some rather poignant moments. Miraculously, superhuman stamina, enthusiasm and resplendent commitment flag not a jot as characters are slipped into and out of at impossible speed, a speed that magically manifests as unhurried ease. Every character is a humorous delight, not sketchily thrown in but each convincingly inhabited and distinct. Super fit and agile, the three morph back and forth, changing appearance, body language, demeanour, voice, accent and personality so fully it’s hard to realise they’re the same person, their wonderfully engaging characters ranging from comparatively sane to utterly bizarre and bonkers. Reinforcing a panto-style audience rapport, the three are also comfortable with briefly coming out of character once or twice to react to each other or interact with the audience.
Particularly good with women as well as men is Matt Freeman, his every creation hilarious, yet rooted, too, in the real. Clad in clinging, metallic elegance and bobbed hair, he’s wilfully charismatic as Zeus’s slinky, husky, haughty, self-assured wife, Hera, and also as her dreamy daughter Hebe, set on marrying Gregg (surname? of course – Jeeby!) Her awkward, lanky looks, long, blond locks and soft, wide-eyed charm and innocence contrast massively with Freeman’s equally splendid portrayal of gum-masticating, slouching, sighing, lazy, am-I-bothered hotel receptionist, Maria, still totally unbothered after being eaten and regurgitated by Zeus. Matt’s extensive role as hotel assistant/waiter, Mousaka aka Tzatziki aka Banana Split, serves up a completely over-the-top bonkers chap of indeterminate foreign accent, dressed all in red with pill-box hat and pom-pommed shoes – until Zeus turns him into a potted plant that proves pretty nimble on a unicycle. As would-be strategy consultant Sharon/Charon Matt shunts a mean swan pedalo across the Styx, while his ridiculously fringed, lilac, three-headed hoot of Cerberus, the poodle-clipped dog, is certainly not to be sniffed at, either.
Equally flawless and flowing in switching characters and costume, Al Dunn and Nick Blunt are sturdy in their portrayals of main protagonists, Gregg, a charming, nice boy whose dreams (and body) are in danger of turning to dust, and the thwarted, shaggy-maned Zeus, who repeatedly finds that executing cunning plans is no easier for a supreme god than it is for a Baldrick or a Basil Fawlty. Then there’s Nestor, the bare-chested Centaur with an uncontrollable Centaur-half, who carries poo-bags to scoop up the fall-out of his nervous reactions – to be hurled into the auditorium once filled; there’s a pink party-planner, a parcel-courier and a tall nurse; there’s the ultimate Showman, ringmaster, gamesmaster, Hades, and there’s the crowd-pleasing Poseidon, the bold, brash, beach-loving Aussie god of seas, storms, earthquakes and, most begrudgingly, of horses. Toting a giant ghetto-blaster and calling everyone Bruce, he’s permanently in loud barbie-party mode, bound for the pool in bathing cap and budgie-smuggling speedos. Mrs Papadopoulos, though, (or could that be Mrs Papapoppertopoff?) is a furtive, silent, shadowy figure. She’s not one of the Big Guns in this piece but there’s certainly no-one with a bigger bazooka.
Divinely funny!
Eileen Caiger Gray
