Paradise review: It’s patchy but when it lands a punch, you feel it in your guts 

Paradise

Olivier Theatre, London                                           Until Saturday, 1hr 50mins

Rating:

Kae Tempest returns to the stage in epic fashion: filling the Olivier with a new version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes.

Philoctetes is a wounded warrior left on an island by Odysseus. A decade on, Odysseus uses Achilles’ son Neoptolemus to persuade Philoctetes to return to the Trojan War.

Paradise is performed by an all-female cast, playing the main men as blustery, embittered blokes, to smartly underline Tempest’s central interpretation: that masculine pride is a posturing and ultimately poisonous thing, and that violence can only ever be pointlessly cyclical. 

Tempest rewrites Sophocles’ ending, too, to further hit the point home.

Tempest’s writing always has its own fierce, gorgeous rhythm, but the best speeches don’t quite feel of the world of the play. There are also some underdeveloped plot points.

Although Ian Rickson’s direction of long-winded debates can be ponderous, the production manages to maintain a grip on the attention. This is largely down to a fearsome performance from Lesley Sharp. 

Her Philoctetes is a defensive, chippy geezer, but is also racked by terrible pain and PTSD. This will doubtlessly be one of the performances of the year – but you remain aware that this is Acting with a capital A.

Sharp is ably supported by Gloria Obianyo as Neoptolemus and Anastasia Hille’s Odysseus. Patchy, then – but when Paradise lands a punch, you feel it in your guts.