JULIAN GLOVER'S BEOWULF

BEOWULF

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

24.05.2015

“Hear! Listen!” The story-teller captures our attention, and keeps it for an hour or more, recounting one of the earliest tales to be written down from the great oral tradition of Norse myth.

Glover makes it all so immediate – the fire flickering in the Great Hall, , the “foam-throated seafarer on the ocean's swell” the dread dragon, the hand of Grendel; they all appear at his bidding in our imagination.

It's surprising funny in parts, and impressively physical. Occasional snatches of the rich original add to the mythic quality, and the candlelit playhouse recalls the convivial hall of Heorot.

It's meant to be told to rapt listeners of course, and for the thirty or more years Glover has been bringing these heroes, monsters and mythical beasts to audiences of all kinds.

But now, at the age of eighty, he's hanging up Beowulf's broad sword, and in a low-key but very moving ceremony, he handed the mantle to his son, Jamie, who will keep the story alive for another generation.