The build-up to the sport explosion that looms over London is heightening, but the Olympics bring more than just inspiration to exercise in logo-coated vests. Since 2008 London has borne witness to the “Cultural Olympiad”, which triangulates various expressions of culture in the form of theatre productions, festivals and workshops. The Olympiad boasts more than 8 300 past workshops with a total attendance of 169 000 people, and over 16 million people have seen an offical London 2012 cultural performance. But, slightly outside the official team’s monopoly on cultural events, London holds a number of theatrical sparks beneath the Olympic radar.
Coinciding with the Olympic dates, the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus will be holding a programme titled Playing the Games. The series of events is technically part of the Olympiad in the London 2012 Festival, but being London’s only independent West End theatre and with a humble capacity of 588, it falls slightly under the array of official events. Playing the Games holds an opportunity to see both up-and-coming and well-established talents in the form of comedians, musicians, playwrights and Olympians. With the aim to bring together sport and culture, encompassing the attempts of the London 2012 Olympics itself, the programme holds two new Olympic-related plays. Taking Part by Adam Brace strings together all the relevant spirits of self-belief and opportunism, and not excluding the timely Olympic tradition of things going wrong. The story follows a Congolese security guard training as an Olympic swimmer to compete in the London Games. His Russian coach doesn’t have much hope for him, but unlike the audience watching real underdogs competing in the real Games, the audience will support his determination and optimism to the end. Alternatively, for the less sporty types, the Criterion will also be showing Serge Cartwright’s After the Party. This follows Sean and Ray, two 30-ish-year-old former DJs trying to shove their feet back in the heavy doors of the music industry. With the world flocking around their Statford homes for London 2012 they have their last chance at a musical career, and the audience has yet another opportunity for Olympic merriment.
If your cultural aim this summer is to avoid the Olympic theme altogether, Playing the Games will also hold performances aimed at the less athletic audience, or at those poor Londoners afflicted with Olympic-bitterness. The renowned and skilled arts group, Paper Cinema, will be showing for one day only a version of Homer’s the Oddysey using hand-drawn paper puppets. In what the Times has called “ingeniously effective”, Paper Cinema will use their skilled puppet masters and riveting live musicians to bring cardboard cut-outs to life. For a more informal theatrical experience, the Criterion is also holding a number of lunchtime interviews by such comedy personalities as Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, and sporting inspirations as Edwin Moses and Haile Gebrselassie.
The Criterion will not be the only theatre to bring drama to the Olympics. At Headlong, Citizens Theatre and Watford Palace Theatre, a new opportunity to see the classic Euripides tragedy Medea will come to light. Mike Bartlett has audaciously written a modern version in association with the Warwick Arts Centre that makes the ancient drama even more horrifying in contemporary context. Or, on the lighter side, you could see a play about a man in labour. Birthday by Joe Penhall at the Royal Court Theatre tells a more comic story about a world with artificial wombs and truly equal partnership in childbirth. Arriving into the world kicking and screaming, Birthday will be showing throughout the summer and shows the wide variety of entertainment available to London in place of sweaty Olympic crowds.
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