The Oxford Festival of the Arts is now in its eleventh year, and this ever-growing cultural event encompasses comedy, dance, film, music, theatre, speakers, sport and exhibitions. Its main sponsor and instigator is Magdalen College School, and just down the road from the school the festival opened with Dario Fo’s, Mistero Buffo at The Pegasus Theatre.

Mistero Buffo (a comical mystery play) was first performed by Fo himself in 1969 and he performed it across Europe, Canada and Latin America for thirty years. In 1977, the Vatican denounced its broadcast as ‘the most blasphemous show in the history of television’. The theatre company, Rhum and Clay have taken the translation, by Ed Emery and given it huge relevance for a contemporary audience. A travelling storyteller, a ‘jongleur’, has delivered his last take-away of the day and now has tales to tell about his life and that of Jesus Christ. He is everyman, trying to scratch a living through honest hard work, thwarted by the rich and powerful.

Julian Spooner enters a smoke filled empty stage and trips over a tree root. There is nothing there of course, or is there? Perhaps if we believe it is there, it is. This theme pervades a piece about the power of belief and how the powerful can control us through it. Spooner immediately engages with the audience, seeming to eyeball each and every one of us and is a complete tour de force, playing every character with physical authenticity. He seamlessly moves from being peasant to woman to soldier to angel to Christ himself, drinking, dancing, fighting and dying with huge intensity, yet huge accessibility too. In the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, he incredibly plays the whole crowd, come to watch the miracle, as if jostling to watch their favourite band. This has to be seen to be believed! There are also moments of great, simple beauty, when twitching hands make shadow play to evoke flames burning.

Spooner’s performance and energy is remarkable – he never leaves the stage and in between each tale there is always dancing, raging, moving to a charged, chanting beat. The genius of this show is that it could be performed anywhere (though Pegasus’ black box space is ideally suitable) as it is totally about the performance, the writing and the directing (Nicholas Pitt). This production was a big success at The Edinburgh Festival last year and Oxford Festival of the Arts should be applauded for choosing it to launch a series of events which run until 7th July.  Seeing is believing.   ★★★★★   Karin André    22^nd June 2019