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Superb: Ruination, at the Linbury Theatre, reviewed

This production captures the authentically hard comic edge of Greek myth. Plus: something is lacking in the Royal Ballet's new Cinderella

Rupert Christiansen
Liam Francis as Jason and Hannah Shepherd-Hulford as Medea in Lost Dog's Ruination, which captures something of the authentically hard comic edge of Greek myth ©2022 Camilla Greenwell
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 14 December 2024
issue 14 December 2024

Ruination begins with an ironic prologue in which a choric figure warns the audience that what follows makes unlikely matter for the festive season: look elsewhere if you’re after light entertainment, he says, because this is going to shake you up a bit. And it does. This is genre-defying physical theatre, ‘devised’ by Ben Duke, in which spoken text is combined with episodes of dance and interludes of song, playfully satirical in tone and uprooted from any boundaries of realism or historical period.

Although it is somewhat pretentious, I pretty much loved it

The choric figure is Hades, and his realm of...

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