For anyone who has fond memories of time on a canal boat, not actually being a bargee but borrowing one for a holiday, this show is a must, a celebration of the canals and those who live on them. Grit of Life is narrated by John Knowles, author and director, with Rory McLeod as song writer, on an 84 year old Canal Boat. The Widgeon Theatre Boat can tour its play with music to navigable water ways and you can sit the other side of the towpath.
At the death of Heracles, his friend Philoctetes was the only one to come forward to light the funeral pyre. In return Philoctetes was given Heracles magical bow and arrows. In the middle of the Trojan wars which went on for decades, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake and his leg turned rancid. The smell was so dreadful and noxious to the other sailors and soldiers that Odysseus abandoned Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos and set sail without him. Ten years later Odysseus returns and this is where Kae Tempest's play begins.
The star of this play for me was Nadine Higgin's Sir Toby Belch. She has magnificent stage presence. I do wonder whether we are meant to like Sir Toby as much as we did? But I loved every moment she was onstage and her interaction with Maria (NadiKemp-Sayfi) was brilliant.