The Odyssey

Raging storms and supernatural forces prevail over one man's almighty quest to get home. Homer's cornerstone of literature is vividly told with beautiful illustration and masterful puppetry. Cinematic projection and cunning tricks transform a suitcase full of cut-out paper puppets into an array of living characters and striking landscapes. A silent film is created before your eyes, set to a captivating live score from exceptional musicians. **** The Times "immense skill...ingeniously effective" **** The Telegraph "a delicately executed piece, which is bound to delight" **** Time Out "an epic, imaginative voyage"

“Puppetry and live music, drawing and storytelling come together in Paper Cinema's ingenious retelling of Homer's story, which offers 70 minutes that are a cross between a silent movie and a projected graphic novel. It is wordless, but never toothless. The tools – rough-hewn black-and-white illustrations and cut-outs that are transformed through projection into a 3D world – are basic, but the effect is often unexpectedly powerful. Yet it feels like something you could do yourself at home with the kids, and that's part of its appeal. There is wonder in its everyday poetry as it delivers an epic in makeshift miniature.” Lyn Gardner - The Guardian

Homer’s Odyssey includes gods, men and monsters and is set on several different islands – so it’s a difficult one to stage. But Paper Cinema have found an ingenious and beautiful way round this.The images are black and white hand drawings, simple illustrations that depict everything from Odysseus’s house, where the suitors wait to pounce on his wife Penelope, to his adventure in the cave with the Cyclops – whom he manages to blind. There’s a chance that those who aren’t familiar with the original story may be slightly perplexed by the plot, but this is unlikely to diminish anyone’s enjoyment of the piece.

It is amazing what these tiny drawings. Despite the illustrations being static in the main, the puppeteers move them closer or further away from the camera’s lens to create a sense of perspective. These tiny, calculated movements evoke atmosphere and suggestion. The drawings themselves are also full of movement, from the way the suitors (depicted as howling wolves) drool at the feet of Penelope, to the furrowed brow of Telemachus Odysseus’s son.

Several moments in the story take on a surreal, dreamlike feel, including an episode in the ancient Greek underworld Hades. Special camera effects are used for this, from blurring to pinhole lenses which brilliantly suggest the inner-workings of Odysseus’s mind. Daisy Bowie-Sell - THE TELEGRAPH