Jermyn Street Theatre Announces THE ODYSSEY

This October, in a digital theatrical first, Jermyn Street Theatre joins forces with The London Review Bookshop and publishers WW Norton to stage a live performance of all twenty-four books of The Odyssey delivered by seventy-two actors over a twelve-hour period. On 9 October, the 2017 critically acclaimed translation of Homer's great epic work by Booker Prize judge Emily Wilson will be presented in its entirety, back to back and without a break via a free online stream on YouTube. This mammoth undertaking aims to reawaken an oral tradition that hails from the eighth century BCE, when the work was first performed by bards across the Mediterranean.

The Odyssey, which is considered to be one of the world's most influential poems, recounts the adventures of Odysseus as he tries to get home after the Trojan War, alongside his wife Penelope's struggles to keep their island kingdom from civil war, and his son Telemachus' search to find his lost father.

Emily Wilson's translation, recapturing the life of the poetry for the 21st century, was hailed as a definitive new version upon its publication in 2017, prompting Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian to write, "The first version of Homer's groundbreaking work by a woman will change our understanding of it for ever... Emily Wilson's crisp and musical version is a cultural landmark."

On Friday 9 October, Books 1 to 4 will stream from 9am on the LRB Bookshop YouTube, and Books 5 to 24 will continue at 12 noon on the Jermyn Street Theatre YouTube and run until late that night. The entire reading will remain on the YouTube channels for a week.

Casting is to be announced.

Tom Littler, Jermyn Street Theatre Artistic Director said: "The Odyssey is not just a gripping adventure story of gods and monsters, but an astonishing work of psychological realism. Its themes of travel, homeland and homelessness are powerfully resonant in 2020. Viewers might drop in and out throughout the day, catch up during the week, or devour the whole feast in a single day."

"The London Review Bookshop is delighted to be joining forces with Jermyn Street Theatre and its wonderful actors to present Emily Wilson's landmark translation of The Odyssey", said The London Review Bookshop.

Jermyn Street Theatre is the West End's smallest producing theatre. Led by Artistic and Executive Directors Tom Littler and Penny Horner, the programme includes outstanding new plays, rare revivals, new versions of European classics, and high-quality musicals, alongside one-off musical and literary events. It collaborates with theatres across the world, and its productions have transferred to the West End and Broadway. Its 2020 had begun with acclaimed, sold-out productions of a Beckett Triple Bill directed by Trevor Nunn, and The Tempest directed by Tom Littler. During closure, the theatre has responded with its Brave New World season of digital work, including the complete cycle of Shakespeare's sonnets performed by a mixture of graduating drama students and household names including Helena Bonham Carter and Olivia Colman.

Located in the heart of Bloomsbury, just a Rosetta Stone's throw from the British Museum, the London Review Bookshop has established itself as an essential part of the capital's cultural life. Opened in 2003 by the London Review of Books, it's a place for people who love books to meet, talk, drink excellent tea and coffee, consume delicious cake, and of course, browse.

W. W. Norton & Company, the oldest and largest publishing house owned wholly by its employees, strives to carry out the imperative of its founder to "publish books not for a single season, but for the years" in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, university textbooks, cookbooks, art books and professional books. W. W. Norton & Company now publishes about 400 books annually in hardcover and paperback.

Emily Wilson is professor of classical studies and graduate chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College, B.A., and Corpus Christi College, M.Phil.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and Early Modern scholarship, and in 2019 was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In addition to The Odyssey, she has published translations of Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca. Among her other books are Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving from Sophocles to Milton; The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint; The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca; and Faithful, a book about translation. Wilson is an editor of The Norton Anthology of World Literature and an advisory editor of the Norton Library.

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