Octopolis

Talk about an eye-catching concept. Marek Horn’s ‘Octopolis’ is set in the modified university accommodation of widowed university professor George (Jemma Redgrave), where she lived with her late husband John, and also Frances, an octopus, who is still here - albeit in Ed Madden’s production only represented by the abstract, tank-like panels of Anisha Fields’s set.

George and John had devoted their lives to the study of Frances, but with him gone, George has become a recluse. But her protracted mourning period is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Henry (Ewan Miller), a younger anthropologist. He’s been given the keys: this isn’t a private home, but a university lab complex with accommodation, and Henry is a man on a mission: he wants to find out if the octopi have a concept of god. 

Horn’s play is incredibly dense and wordy, as George and John bat around ideas about grief, anthropology, divinity, love and - no escaping it - cephalopods. There is some gold in his dialogue. But it’s also pretty exhausting - relentlessly emotionally intense and hyper-wordy, made wordier still by Horn’s insistence on George and John literally say the stage directions and scene descriptions, effectively narrating the play as well as performing in it.

Perhaps the most dramatically fruitful concept thrown up is the idea that from an anthropological perspective, David Bowie could be said to have occupied a sort of divine role in Western culture in the aftermath of his death. It’s an interesting idea but moreover a great excuse to explore George’s love of The Thin White Duke and have his classic hits playing during the scene transitions, often with the two characters dancing to them.

It’s a funny old play: dense, but with fun stuff sprinkled on, almost as if the writer knew it was going to be a slog so added a spoonful of sugar to help it all go down. Which is fair enough, but for all the verbiage and philosophising, I’m not sure it’s particularly deep - certainly the plot unfolds a lot more predictably than the conversations.

Perhaps ‘Octopolis’ doesn’t live up to the promise of its premise, but it’s still singular enough to be worth a look… and certainly the best play about an octopus I’ve ever seen.