Review: PARADISE LOST (LIES UNOPENED BESIDE ME), Battersea Arts Centre

One thought rattled around my head all night while watching this radical take on Paradise Lost: how would God react to all of this? Would Jehovah, The Almighty, Him Up There be more or less angry than he was at the original text that was banned by the Catholic Church for hundreds of years? Would He raise a solitary finger and cast lightning down on the venue? Or are we so close to the end times that He would just blow out his cheeks and twiddle His thumbs?

Answers, there come none (as per). Lost Dog’s Ruination had a much-acclaimed run last December at the Royal Opera House and the company has followed up that success by going back to one of their older works. Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) does to Milton’s epic poem what Milton did to the Book of Genesis: deconstruct, reconstruct and invert the accepted version of events to offer contemporary insights. Rather than make God the hero, here Satan is the protagonist who suffers his Creator’s injustices and retaliates through Adam and Eve.

Ben Duke won the Critics' Circle award for outstanding male performance when he starred in this solo piece in 2015 and this difficult role is now played by Sharif Afifi. How many other performers will combine stand-up, theatre and dance in a show which ends with water mercilessly pouring down onto their head? The demands on Afifi are many as he moves swiftly from scene to scene, clambering up then down a rope to make his grand entrance then creating Heaven and Eden before us with little more than highly expressive words and motions.

The main twist sees Afifi playing two intertwined parts. On the one hand, he retells Milton’s narrative through a modern lens. God creates Heaven and falls for Lucifer in a crowded club. After the pair move in together, God announces that he wants a baby which sets in motion Lucifer’s turn to the dark side and his own fall. God decides to start over by creating Eden then Adam and lastly Eve; Lucifer seeks vengeance and visits this new paradise in the form of a sock puppet snake.

On the other, Afifi plays a dancer trying to keep his children in line as he works on his next piece of choreography. With the kids out of control, he seeks inner peace and confidence in his latest concept: a re-invention of Paradise Lost in which God creates Heaven and falls for Lucifer in a crowded club…

As dramatic conceits go, it’s a clever one which never outstays its welcome. Classical music is used to underscore the Biblical episodes (God descends to us as Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” plays before Lucifer’s fall to the sound of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”). In the modern day, Afifi rocks out to Janis Joplin as he recounts his own character’s life story. The meta elements are wonderfully mined for comedy and never overstep the core premise. Meanwhile the parallels between the two stories are overlaid in a superbly crafted manner, especially the emphasis on how creators and their creations are dependent on one another.

With the same knowing and cheeky ingenuity that Ruination used to rip up the standard Medea story and patch it back together into something fresh and fun, this early slice of Lost Dog delivers a nuanced and entertaining side look at one of English literature’s beloved works. If He’s up there watching, I’m sure God approves.

Paradise Lost (lies unopened besides me) continues at Battersea Arts Centre until 5 April.

Photo credit: Zoe Manders

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