24 – 25 February

Performance storyteller Ben Haggerty’s Orpheus Dismembered vividly creates the deeply strange, horribly gory and utterly amoral world of the Greek gods. He is accompanied on stage by multi-instrumentalist Jonah Brody, who adds atmosphere and tension with subtle use of guitar, accordion and percussion. There is some gently comic interplay between musician and storyteller, for there is nothing solemn or reverential in Haggerty’s performance, and there is no fourth wall. He cheerfully acknowledges that these stories are ‘in extremis’ and utterly lacking in our modern notions of conventional morality. With a twinkle in his eye, he hopes we have read the trigger warnings.

Beginning with a fascinating Cook’s tour of various myths, including that of Cronus, leader of the Titans, who had the disturbing habit of swallowing his own children at birth, the first half of the show ends rather more cheerfully with a witty and gloriously noisy account of the invention of wine. The chaotic consequences of intoxication are conveyed with much shouting, foot-stamping and tambourine bashing. Haggerty and Brody together succeed in recreating an entire Dionysian orgy, a singularly appropriate way to send an audience off to the bar.

The second half of Orpheus Dismembered  has a more sombre tone as it focuses upon Orpheus’s desperate attempt to bring his much-loved wife Eurydice back from the dark depths of the land of the dead, the underworld. Haggerty movingly depicts Orpheus’s sorrow and desperation as he discovers that his task is deemed impossible. The pact Orpheus strikes with Hades, god of the underworld, that of leading his wife out without ever looking back to check that she is following him is a test of trust and obedience. Will Orpheus succeed? Despite the familiarity of this story, as Haggerty described the long journey back up from the underworld, there was a sense of the audience collectively holding its breath. Of course, matters do not end well, and Haggerty depicts its grim consequences in vividly dramatic fashion.

The gods Haggerty describes behave in a seemingly arbitrary fashion, acting out their desires and frustrations through cruelly intervening in the lives of hapless humans. Their extremes can feel shockingly unreal but Haggerty is a master storyteller who brings these archetypal myths alive, sometimes conveying the cosmic scale of events with broad gestures and hugeness of voice, while at other times a near-whispered delivery creates sharply-focused intimacy.

Dating back before ancient times, this was once how all tales were told. Not from playscripts, or in novels, or films or TV, but by a solitary figure spinning narratives that gave shape and meaning to the mysteries and unpredictability of life, creating unforgettable pictures in listeners’ minds. Such men must have had engaging personalities, great vocal skills, and the ability to make even the most strange and grotesque stories come alive and, for a moment, seem real. Ben Haggerty has those qualities in abundance.

★★★★☆  Mike Whitton, 25 February 2026