[Theatre/Physical Theatre GB]

The Yurt, Migration Museum, Fri 16 Feb, 2024

It’s easy to forget how the foundations of our culture were formed. We need to remind ourselves the cement in those foundations is from Greece. If art is the soil in which our culture grows – not in some petri-dish as modern science might have us believe – then the earth worms and many grains in that soil are the Greek legends. They are the basis of our western civilisation. We have the Arabs to thank for translating them and passing them on to our scholars after the ‘dark ages,’ to kick-start the Renaissance and make them available to all.

From the multi award winning team of Wright&Grainger, Helios is one of these key stories. Like all of those from classic times it will remain relevant as long as human beings live. Why? Because they are signposts to our psyche.

The tale is expertly told in exquisite detail, transposed cleverly into a familiar modern setting. With a mischievous sense of fun , the story-teller acts much like the traditional troubadour, weaving the strands together into a magic carpet for us to ride upon.

Earnest yet humble, the performer asks us to consider how much energy we expend maintaining our place in the ‘Goldilocks zone,’ – aka our comfort zone, and how much it might take for us to go beyond it. While working from a solid script, the style is more improvised spontaneity.

The audience are invited to take various character parts, and as radio is called the ‘theatre of the mind,’ we engage our imaginations fully when great story-telling like this draws us into another world. The musical accompaniment supports the story superbly.

Like all good endings there is no clear moral stand. The complexities of the human mind are mirrored in the multi-layered meanings. And the Greeks were masters of paradox.

At the simple level the lesson of ‘hubris leading to a fall’ is strong, but this story of coming-of-age also involves tragic loss and unresolved grief, creating an absent dad syndrome. Yet it remains a celebration of the indomitable power of the the human spirit to ‘think big’ and dare to reach for the impossible, that ‘unreachable star.’