Letter from the Editor, Daisy Dunn
Worrying news that the National Theatre is to cut its production team from 24 to seven by
next year. I don’t know that getting more people through the doors will make a difference, but ARGO readers shall, I’m sure, be intrigued by the new Bacchae by Nima Taleghani playing there this autumn. The theatre’s Wolfson Gallery is also hosting a fascinating exhibition – ‘The Greeks: Radical Reinvention’ – exploring Greek tragedies staged at the theatre in the past. The photograph above showing the cast of Antigone in 2012 is just one of many delightful pieces on display.
Some of you may have caught ARGO contributor David Stuttard’s excellent ‘Women and Troy’ at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford this summer. Sitting in the stalls while Dame Sîan Phillips and Rachel Donovan read their parts, I couldn’t help taking in the gasps, sharp intakes of breath and even tears of those around me. Is there another body of work aside from Greek myth that elicits such an emotional response today? (Continue reading.)
ANCIENT
- JAN PARKER discovers that the theme of the returning hero, central to two new films inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, has always possessed dark, violent undertones
- Former Archbishop of Canterbury ROWAN WILLIAMS explains why the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea of 325 should matter to Classicists as well as Christians
- STELLA DINENIS argues that Herodotus, her childhood hero, deserves the benefit of the doubt
- All roads lead to Rome, but they cross, argues MACIEJ WACŁAWIK, in the Negev Desert
PUZZLES
- Puzzles set by JULIAN MORGAN
MODERN
- JULIANA MONTOYA explores the similarities between Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and the Colombian novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold
- VASSILIKI POTHOU remembers her aunt, the celebrated poet and playwright Maria Lampadaridou-Pothou, at a formative moment in her life
- NATALIE HAYNES spills the beans for CAROLINE K. MACKENZIE in our autumn interview
- As Melvyn Bragg announces his retirement from In Our Time, ANGIE HOBBS looks back on the first of what would prove to be a record-making number of appearances on the popular BBC Radio programme
SOCIETY
- HELLENIC SOCIETY NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
ARTS
- CARL MAUZY argues that the artist known as Nelly’s was the closest Greece has ever had to a national photographer
- PHILIPPA JOSEPH discovers that, despite their many claims to the contrary, 20th-century Italian designers were often heavily inspired by classical art and architecture
- ESTHER EIDINOW describes how virtual reality can help us to understand religious experience in ancient Greece
- FAITH DODD is impressed by a theatre adaptation of a popular novel inspired by Greek myth, but wonders whether the stage is best suited to the source material
REVIEWS
- A round-up of recent and forthcoming books
- J. W. BONNER is intrigued by a poetry collection centred on a curiously modern Helen of Troy
- ALICE DUNN enjoys portions of charm and cheesecake in Mark Kurlansky’s latest novel
- Runciman Award 2025 Winner announced
