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London,
Critic rating
Reader rating
Dir: Gavin Quinn.
Cast: Pan Pan Theatre
Description: Irish theatre company Pan Pan stages this modern take on Sophocles' drama, giving the story an edgy, punk-rock reading, about one of the most infamous of dysfunctional families. Written by Simon Doyle and Gavin Quinn. Contains nudity.
Trains: Tube: Hammersmith 
Phone: 0208237 1111
Website: www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Pan Pan Theatre's version of the myth of Oedipus opens with a naked Tiresias singing wildly with his penis tucked between his legs, while Oedipus and Jocasta bonk in bed. It's an unusual start that sets the tone of this eccentric and ultra-modern take on the story of a man who's doomed by a prophecy to kill his father and marry his mother.
The Irish theatre company presents an unwitting Oedipus and mum/wife Jocasta raising their depressive adolescent daughter Antigone while living with blind prophet Tiresias and Jocasta's pervy brother Creon in suburban hell. It's a dysfunctional family and a half, played to great comic effect by a confident cast.
This unpredictable, irreverent production recalls the style of Kneehigh Theatre, though that group's grounded, playful approach is made somewhat more laboured and conceptual here. What's overwhelming about it all is the additional - often affected - touches, from two video screens rolling continuous footage to the cast doubling as a punk rock band.
Writers Gavin Quinn and Simon Doyle deliver an inspired interpretation: psychoanalysing these mythical characters in a family therapy session is a witty conceit, while using the oppression of suburbia as a metaphor for the plague is clever. But too often the references are difficult to decipher, and you wonder whether moments are charged with symbolism or just nonsensical whimsy.
Until Sun, Riverside Studios, Crisp Road W6, Tue to Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm, £15, £12.50 concs. Tel: 020 8237 1111. Tube: Hammersmith
Zena Alkayat
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
