Fringe Metamorphoses Transfers to London, 8 Sep

London theatregoers will have a chance to see Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the most talked-about shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, as it makes a direct transfer to Croydon Warehouse, where it will run for three weeks from 8 September to 3 October 2010.

Further ahead, though dates and venue have yet to be confirmed, the Pants on Fire production will receive its New York premiere, care of the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, which it won last Friday. The Award, set up in 2004, is presented to one piece of “highly original” theatre discovered at the Edinburgh Fringe. The prize pays all expenses, including transportation for the cast, crew and props to and from New York, visa expenses, the cast and crew’s stay in New York, publicity and theatre expenses.

In the stylised piece of physical theatre, Roman mythology is relocated to 1940s wartime Britain. The Metamorphoses are fantastical love stories that pursue the theme of physical transformation. In each myth, a human body is miraculously changed into a different form – a tree; an island; an animal; a flower; an ocean; a constellation.

On stage, Ovid’s epic tales of heroics, love, gods, monsters and the secrets of the universe are revealed through gasmasks, gramophones, live original songs, dance, puppetry, film and darkly comic, dynamic storytelling. Cupid becomes an evacuee with a catapult; Narcissus, a Hollywood matinee idol drooling over his screen image; and an Andrews Sisters chorus finds close harmony amid cosmic chaos.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is adapted and directed by Peter Bramley, with lighting by Ralph Stokeld and music by Lucy Egger. The cast are Johnathan Davenport, Jo Dockery, Mabel Jones, Joseph Mann Alex Packer, Hannah Pierce and Eloise Secker.

At the 2010 Edinburgh, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was also shortlisted for the Musical Theatre Matters: UK Awards, sponsored by Whatsonstage.com, and was singled out by Whatsonstage.com editorial director Terri Paddock for her own on-the-spot “editor’s prize”.