Mythos: Ragnarok at Alexandra Palace Theatre

Double crosses, triple crosses, triumphs, defeats. On the face of it, Norse Mythology’s apocalyptic tale of an almighty war of gods and giant, mythical beasts lines up neatly with the tried and tested tropes of pro wrestling. Even the ancient oral traditions in which the tales are grounded feel designed to create a not altogether dissimilar dynamic with audiences, bound to each successive twist of story and participatorily willing the next development into being. It’s a thought this raucous production’s been mining for simple, ingenious gold for the better part of five years, its unique hybrid of smackdowns and traditional theatrical storytelling making its swaggering way from Edinburgh Fringe success to a worldwide touring extravaganza, and now stopping by for a weekend in the suitably cavernous Alexandra Palace Theatre. At the second of the three performances, the proudly goofy spectacle’s warm reception by an effusive crowd is not, on the face of it, a surprise. After all, it can’t be said that writer-director-producer Ed Gamester and co are not delivering exactly as advertised, but there is still room to be disarmed by just how much Mythos: Ragnarok is willing to work for its crowd; how suffused it is with a love for The Poetic Edda no less strong than its love of rockstar entrances and body-slams. For all its expected, consciously campy excesses, the boldest thing about the show is that it all ultimately adds up to something more than halfway sincere.

For that, much of the credit can be granted to performers who perfectly ride the line between tongue-in-cheek mockery and genuine commitment. Normally, the tale’s tricksy villain, here the fast-talking schemer Loki (as played by Gamester), is re-invented as its plucky, resourceful hero, his partnership-turned-rivalry with hard-headed Odin (Howard Drake) providing the story’s emotional core. Thor and Baldur (James Dunn and Beau Charles, respectively), two brawny paragons of godly invincibility, are thusly rendered as two distinct flavours of himbo. Where the former is sweetly dim in his puppyish enthusiasm for combat, the latter is a vain and boastful school prefect, prone to squabbling with his sister Freyja (Heidi Katrina). That isn’t even accounting for fierce Gulveig (Louise Young), the wolf Fenrir (Fin McCarthy), the spectral Hel (Daisy Jenkins) and Jormungandr the World Serpent (Sam Gardiner). What these performers – and Mythos: Ragnarok – understand so clearly is that the core of the myth is big, combustible personalities with a predilection for being extra on a cosmic scale, all colliding in petty contests of strength that prove destructive not only to their families, but to the whole of the Mid world (“because it’s in the middle!”) they have created.

At its best, that storytelling clarity dovetails with propulsive pacing, lavish, neon bright lighting (from light designer Dan Phillips) and a score (reportedly brand new, and courtesy of composer Kjell Braaten) that seamlessly blends ancient grandeur and contemporary cheese to create satisfying crash-bang spectacle. Furthermore, the crowd more than does its part, lending every chant, boo, cheer (and, somewhat less welcome, seemingly irrepressible one-liners of their own) that the moment requires. Still, Ragnarok can also feel slightly overextended at two hours and change, and one occasionally wishes that its fight choreography – consistent as it is in producing pleasingly thunderous slams – offered more surprises. Nonetheless, the degree to which you may be genuinely invested in its operatic conclusion is a testament to the genuine dramatic gravity that Gamester and co have accrued, not trading in the sense of stakes in favour of lampooning the gods’ soap operatic silliness, but allowing both sensibilities to co-exist with scarcely any strain. In that way, the show is not unlike the costumes Melanie Watson has designed for it: deliberately cheesy, yes, but also rendered with enough attention to the little things that, come the end, you buy into it not as ironic pageantry, but as the real deal.

Ultimately, there’s enough high-machismo pageantry in this high-energy production to satisfy wrestling fans, enough twists, turns and performances of unforced conviction to satisfy theatre fans, and enough eloquent understanding of its source material to sate lovers of Norse mythology. Long may it run.