Kings Belfast Festival

A BARE stage, moodily lit; the thud of drums in the distance, creeping ominously closer; a hushed, waiting audience. Into this stark, intimidating arena walks a lone figure, clad in black shot silk tunic and trousers, a cream woollen blanket in his hand. This is Peter Florence's only prop with which to wind us through the gorgeous images and political manoeuvrings of, arguably, the western world's greatest sustained work of literature.

Three years ago, this young Welsh actor - who, incidentally, is also the director and driving force behind the massive annual Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival - sent shivers down the spine with his adaptation of the vulnerable poems and letters written during the first World War by Wilfred Owen. War is again the central theme in his latest solo performance - a pared down reworking of the first two books in Christopher Logue's glorious epic poem from, Homer's Iliad.

With astonishing verbal, mental and physical dexterity, Florence lines up the opposing forces, as the great names spring to heroic life before our very eyes. In order to keep up, however, one has to listen hard and dredge up long-forgotten history and classics lessons. On the Greek side are the brothers, the king Agamemnon and Menelaos, who has lost his wife Helen to the Trojan Paris; the young pretender Achilles; the legendary Odysseus; wise Nestor and his son Patroclus. Lying in wait across the plain are the Trojans - commanded by Priam, Hector, Aeneas and Paris. And over and above, lurk the gods - Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Thetis - their eerily theatrical interventions merely part of a game, in which the human players are caught like flies in a web.

A handful of added props; and a more atmospheric sound-track might have served to enhance the overall dramatic effect of this courageous piece, but, at the end of the day, superb poetry, stirring events and a startlingly confident performance could produce nothing but praise and admiration.