Odyssey ’84 review – the miners’ strike gets a Homeric twist

Sherman theatre, Cardiff Tim Price’s play links a 1980s coal miner with Odysseus in an affecting if heavy-handed mythological drama Forty years after the 1984 miners’ strike, Tim Price’s play maps Homer’s Odyssey on to events that already carry the weight of their own mythology. Our Odysseus is Welsh miner John O’Donnell (Rhodri Meilir) who is subjected to the caprices of unseen authority figures and must journey to faraway lands. His wife, Penny, faithfully – if not passively – awaits for his return in a drama where the women do much of the heavy lifting. Sara Gregory is excellent in the role, becoming the production’s emotional core, and the delicacy of the brief scenes with her friend Shaz (a wonderful Lisa Zahra), focusing on the activities of women who sustained their communities during the strike, are the most affecting.