Review | Dido's Bar at Staggeringly Good, Portsmouth: 'Well-worth catching with themes that remain as timely as ever'

A loose, modern-set retelling of Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, as a piece of gig/immersive theatre, it brings notions of nationality, immigration and race to the fore, as told through the lives and loves of Dido (Lola May) and Aeneas (Lahcen Razzougui) as well as Turnus (Tuukka Leppanen) and Matina (Gemma Barnett).

The action is overseen and influenced by the bickering sibling immortals and bar owners Venus (Priscille Grace) and Juno (Georgina White).

Music runs throughout, and is key to the show – inspired as it is by the life of Kurdish Iranian, now Finnish resident, musician Marouf Majidi, who is part of the band onstage. From the earlier ‘world’ music songs to the jazzier numbers of act two, I would happily listen to this soundtrack again. And impressive vocal talent runs across the whole cast.

The brewhouse is transformed into the speakeasy-style Dido's Bar (and latterly the slicker Bar Latinus) and while there is a stage at the front, the cast often roam through the seated audience.

It can be disorienting at times trying to work out where a voice is coming from. Indeed at one point while focusing on what was happening in front of my table I hadn't noticed Leppanen was standing right over my shoulder until he spoke. It brings the audience right into the action.

The question of free will looms large – how much control do we really have over our lives?

The Greeks believed that humanity was the plaything of the gods, and that is cleverly transposed here to show how that could just as easily be modern day authorities toying with individuals' lives, with little care for the outcome.

In the finale Juno and Venus sing ‘I'm like you, you're like me', to each other, but soon the rest of the cast join in and they're obviously addressing us, the audience.

It rams home the point that we're all the same under the skin and there but by the grace of god(s) go we all…

It’s a show well-worth catching with themes that remain, sadly, as timely as ever.

Also playing tonight (Sunday.)