Agamemnon

A death foretold: The Voyage Home, by Pat Barker, reviewed

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Cassandra prophesies Agamemnon’s death as punishment for his crimes in Troy. But she knows that she too must share his fate -- since ‘you can’t cherry-pick prophecy’

‘Achilles has a dispute with Agamemnon [following Briseis being taken away, and Achilles refusing to fight until she is returned]’, J.H. Tischbein, 1776, oil on canvas. (Bridgeman Images)

Pat Barker travels to Troy, but finds herself diverted somewhere outside Ypres

22 September 2018 9:00 am

Sing muse, begins The Iliad, of the wrath of Achilles. We are dropped straight into the tenth year of the…

The Siege of Troy (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Blois, 17th century)

A woman’s version of the Trojan War

9 April 2016 9:00 am

The Iliad begins with a grudge and ends with a funeral. In between are passages, if not necessarily of boredom,…

The singing made me seasick: ETO’s Don Giovanni reviewed

26 March 2016 9:00 am

One of these days I will probably see a production of Don Giovanni set in a research station in the…

Seamus Heaney in 1996

Seamus Heaney: no shuffling or cutting — just turning over aces

13 December 2014 9:00 am

The impersonator — Rory Bremner, Steve Coogan — speaks, in different voices, to a single primitive pleasure centre in his…