What's On

The Odyssiad

Presented by MCS Drama

Adult £16 | Child £11

An image of a silver roman helmet with a dark blue background

5 Stars

Polished performances, slick direction, professional technical production

Oxford Mail (The Hobbit, 2023)

By Alex Thomas

Magdalen College School returns with a new telling of the Homeric epics with a powerful rock-inspired musical score, including original songs and electrifying choreography.

1200 BC. A woman waits and watches the sea from a clifftop. She is Penelope, wife of Odysseus, who has yet to return from the Trojan War after ten years. Their son, Telemachus, wonders whether he will ever be able to fill his legendary father’s place. 1902. A young Cambridge student, Winifred Kennedy, digs in the ruins of Mycenae, heartland of ancient Greece, under the stern and watchful eye of archaeologist Henry Allen. Teddy, his son, loathes everything about the ancient world, so Winifred takes it upon herself to bring the past alive for him, drawing father and son closer together. Her vivid storytelling takes us back three thousand years, to the epic world of Homer’s immortal tales, The Iliad and The Odyssey, where great warriors clash in single combat and a city’s fate hangs in the balance. Odysseus’s perilous journey home after the war is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told.