If there’s a book you’re guaranteed to come across in a literature degree, it’s Beowulf. Lecturers will tell you how stunning it is, historians will gasp at its insight into early medieval legend, archaeologists will argue over how to date the one manuscript we have of it. It’s also the epic poem that for a thousand years has struck terror into students’ hearts - how on earth am I supposed to study something written in Old English?!Well a group called Banana Bag & Bodice have brought along a new take on Beowulf, with the aid of Seamus Heaney’s translation, that will make everything easier to understand. The form of telling this story is unlike one you’re likely to have encountered: it’s part song-play, part musical, part cabaret and part poetry reading. It’s an interesting take on a very interesting poem. (Yeah, I’m one of the nerds that actually likes Beowulf).Three story-tellers, who also assume roles in the performance, introduce the work to us, as well as the literary background and some scholarly debate. A band, comprised largely of brass and woodwind instruments, provide backing, while Beowulf is a permanent part. This isn’t a straight re-telling: the company have given some of their own additions to make things more interested - including a rather odd fact that Grendel’s mother reveals about her son - but it is a charming performance nonetheless. Singing is fantastic across the board, especially a song in the text’s original language towards the end.The main issue this ‘play’ has is that it’s a little unusual, but there are few negatives in the actual performance of the piece. Occasionally the songs can stunt the movement of the story, making moments like Beowulf’s arrival into the land that the monster Grendel is terrorising a little overdrawn, but there is also sensitivity to the mood of the audience in the way the piece is performed. All are confident, if over-dramatic, though this befits the nature of the text they are working with. Catch it if you can, but I promise it’s not everyone’s thing.
