A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Synopsis

Bawdy musical based on the play of Plautus set in ancient Rome, with the hit Comedy Tonight! Pseudolus, the slave, is left in charge of his owner's young son who has fallen madly in live with a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. If he can rescue the girl he will be free! What can go wrong?

Our Review:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 27 September 2010

When A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum first tripped onto the London stage in 1963, it seemed unique and unfamiliar. Since then we’ve become accustomed to Stephen Sondheim as a composer and lyricist who takes a completely fresh approach to each new composition and who plays with time as well as space and the people who inhabit it.

We’ve also lived through Up Pompeii on television and film and devoured such a feast of histories, novels, thrillers and broadcast programmes both fictional and factual about ancient Rome that the place, its customs and its denizens seem completely recognisable to us some 2,000 years later.

Hornchurch’s revival has a largish cast of 14, all of whom play instruments as well as sing, dance and act. The lynchpin performance is that of Julian Littman as the slave Pseudolus who manipulates everyone as he tries to satisfy his young master, the boy’s parents, the neighbours and somehow earn his...

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