The Odyssey: Almeida plans to stage 12-hour reading at landmark venues across London

'We’ve decided to make it harder for ourselves by moving it around London'

A scene from 'The Odyssey', a television adaptation of Homer's ancient epic (Hallmark Entertainment/Getty)

As Odysseus made his way home from Troy, the Ancient Greek hero overcame cannibals, a Cyclops, singing sirens and a deadly whirlpool.

Theatre lovers will soon be challenged to an odyssey of their own though their adversaries are more likely to be traffic and Tube delays, as they follow a one-off dramatic reading of the entire Homer text staged across the capital.

The Almeida Theatre put on a 16-hour reading of The Iliad split between the British Museum and its own stage in August which met with huge acclaim. Now it is to stage a follow-up on a much grander scale. Robert Icke, associate director of the theatre who is overseeing the event, said the huge audience appetite for The Iliad had prompted the theatre to consider another unabridged reading.

After discussions with the artistic director, Rupert Goold, they settled on the “logical” choice of The Odyssey to close the Almeida’s season of Greek works. “It follows The Iliad and it is about the hero coming home,” Mr Icke said.

“We’ve decided to make it harder for ourselves by moving it around London,” he continued. “It adds a whole layer of complicated logistics to it. But we wanted to stage The Odyssey and set it as an odyssey around London.”

The artistic team is in talks to bring the event to five main sites where the actors can read for up to 90 minutes in front of an audience. “We are currently nailing down locations,” Mr Icke said.

Some actors will read their lines from the text while on the move, with the audience able to follow on a live stream of the event online; the director even hopes to stage some of it on the River Thames.

The Almeida Greeks season included The Oresteia, Bakkhai and Medea. The unabridged reading of Homer’s Iliad was the most ambitious project. It took place over 16 hours with 66 actors including Simon Russell Beale, Ben Whishaw, Sinead Cusack and Lesley Manville.

“The Iliad was unplannable,” Mr Icke said. “You can’t rehearse with the actors as you can’t get them twice. You don’t know if they will speak quickly, slowly or whether they will even turn up.

“It’s like driving the bus in Speed,” the director said, comparing it to the 1994 film. “You just have to keep it going and hope for the best.”

In addition, the Almeida did not know if the audience would attend. “It was a terrifying project,” Mr Icke said.

“We were nervous because The Iliad could have played to nobody, but it was full all the way through.” Ahead of the 9am start, there were queues outside the British Museum and with the live stream the audience hit 50,000 people around the world. The Odyssey will be staged on 12 November and is estimated to take around 12 hours.