Review: REMYTHED, King's Head Theatre

“Stories are always being put through the wash, and end up with a sock in there which was never there before.” It’s an old sentiment, the idea that mythological tradition is fluid by its very nature, but somehow, in the hands of Remythed’s company, it feels new.

That freshness is a running theme throughout this new blend of physical theatre, comedy, and storytelling, the debut production from directors Roann Hassani McCloskey and Joel Samuels, which tours the UK after successful runs at Vault Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. We’re hardly deprived of queer re-tellings of well known stories – or of feminist re-tellings, or any kind of re-telling, really – but Remythed skillfully resists cliché.

The show is structured as a series of vignettes of mythological stories retold through a queer lens, and it helps the show’s sense of originality that these stories are mostly not from the Western canon. Many audience members may not have heard of the Assyrian would-be monarch who goes on a quest to learn humility, or of the spider Anansi from West African folklore, but it doesn’t matter, since these motifs (one from each cast member’s cultural background) are seamlessly weaved into a trajectory from the creation of humankind to the present day – queer people have always been here, in every part of the world.

Where Remythed’s storytelling excels is in its focus on queer joy rather than trauma or discomfort. Far from the figure of shame and original sin from Jewish folklore, Adam’s first wife Lilith sees the Garden of Eden as a liberating route into embracing gender fluidity and asexuality, golden lighting effects warming their face; that Assyrian heir to the throne understands their non-binary identity more fully when they find new community beyond the confines of the palace.

Perhaps the show’s most romantic moments come in a reimagined love story between Lady Godiva and a sympathetic female variant on Peeping Tom, which owes more than a little to the classic tropes of the lesbian period drama. Despite this overwhelming sense of awakening and euphoria, though, there’s also a willingness across the board here to engage with issues that remain under-discussed, especially class and racial dynamics in queer communities.

The company are also effective in their use of physical theatre and movement to tell these stories, with tightly considered body language conveying everything from a staid royal couple to the sense of isolation at a modern gay bar. The five cast members’ ability to effortlessly flit between roles of different genders, ages, and statuses – about 30 across the whole show – fits the show’s fluid approach to gender and identity.

Sometimes, the cast’s self-consciousness about ‘telling a story’ can tip over into self-indulgence. The profound truths in the script can be obscured by fourth wall-breaking and corpsing, giving the frustrating sense of an inside joke among the cast that the audience doesn’t quite get. This is perhaps a consequence of the show’s origins in more casual and interactive festival settings, but it could be dialed back to allow the writing's intelligence and humanity to really sing.

Scheherazade of Arabian Nights fame opens and closes the show – now a married lesbian telling her tales out of love, not fear of execution – with the affirmation that “1,001 queer stories mean we never feel alone”. One can feel many emotions upon leaving this show, but chief among them is the knowledge that we are never alone.

Remythed tours the UK until 11 July