Pericles – Olivier Theatre, London

Ayesha Dharker with the cast of Pericles at the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre, London. Picture: James Bellorini

Pericles at the Olivier Theatre, London.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (the very best possible show of its type)

Pericles – complete with a Bulgarian choir, Indian percussionists, a cheerleader team and a gospel choir (among other wonders) – is one of the most joyfully celebratory shows I’ve ever seen.

Part of a new National Theatre initiative, Public Acts, and inspired by New York City’s Public Theater, this is community theatre at its very best.

NT is working with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and a number of other companies, charities and groups to make Public Acts both truly national and ongoing.

Pericles is a quest story and each of the nine cameo performance companies featured in this production represents a different place or discrete group of people.

The Youthsayers ska band, for instance, took over the main band’s platform above centre stage to play for the pirates who rescue Marina. And at one point three drummers from Bhavan Centre sit at the centre of a huge maypole (set by Fly Davis) with a massive quasi-hoedown going on all around them with some fabulous fiddling by Nick Pynn tucked away in the band.

It’s a show which presents one theatrical wonder after another (where and when can we see more of the stupendously slick Ascension Eagles and their terrific circus skills?).

Director Emily Lim knows how to fill that big space with her very large cast to the best possible effect and there’s plenty of spectacle. At the heart of it are six professional actors to glue it all together. Ashley Zhangazha’s Pericles is stage-commandingly thoughtful, charismatic and a good learner. And he sings well.

Ayesha Dharker is strong as Queen Simonida too: warm, attractive but assertive. Dharker seems to be especially – and very creditably – drawn to community theatre, having played Titania in RSC’s Dream for a Nation last year.

Other parts are played by 120 non-professionals aged from 4-80 plus drawn from all over London. Diversity and inclusivity are central to this show. Some actors (including professional Garry Robson as Cleon – excellent) use wheelchairs. And there’s a happy range of body shapes, speaking voices and, of course, ethnicity too.

Chris Bush’s text (captioned by NT on both sides of the Olivier stage) uses a lot of Shakespeare along with other language deftly woven in to ensure clear storytelling.

Jim Fortune’s music zips cheerfully from genre to genre – all of it accessible and fun. The nightclub/brothel scene is a highspot in a show which is not exactly short of them.

Well done all for this production. Pericles is not one of Shakespeare’s best plays and this version is a great improvement on most “straight” accounts of it.

And it’s a terrific example of what can be achieved when you set out to celebrate the glorious range of talent and people there is across London. I’m gleefully looking forward to the next stage of Public Acts.

Susan Elkin

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INTERVIEW: ‘The whole show is a celebration of what we can do in multicultural London’: Composer James Fortune on why the National Theatre’s Pericles is pretty special