Too briefly seen on its first appearances in Paris, Manchester and London, Damon Albarn’s cartoon opera was credited with introducing a new audience to an art form often seen as elitist. Now it’s back for an extended residency at the O2, in a specially constructed tent with its own restaurant, bar and foot-massage parlour.

Created by Albarn with his Gorillaz collaborator Jamie Hewlett and a horde of Chinese performers marshalled by director Chen Shi-Zheng, Monkey draws on a Tang Dynasty manuscript about an anthropoid king, born a mortal on earth, who decides to gatecrash heaven to demand a longer lease of life.

However, Albarn and Hewlett were equally inspired by the 1970s TV version of the story that concentrated on Monkey’s cheekily comic adventures with his companions — a Buddhist monk, a sand monster and a pig. The imagery of the opera will already be familiar to those who saw Albarn and Hewlett’s idents for the BBC coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

In terms of showmanship, Monkey promises to be another spectacular feather in the O2’s cap, with singers accompanied on stage by contortionists, acrobats and martial artists, and the orchestra augmented by weird and wonderful musical instruments, including one, the Klaxophone, of Albarn’s invention. It might upset the opera purists but, as Monkey himself would mischievously say — who cares?

8 November-5 December (0844 847 1665/0871 230 1097/0870 444 5556; www.monkeyjourneytothewest.com).