Onassis, Novello Theatre

Robert Lindsay shines in deeply silly play about Aristotle Onassis

by Matt WolfWednesday, 13 October 2010

It's all Greek to him: Robert Lindsay plays Aristotle Onassis in Martin Sherman's new playTristram Kenton

What's the Greek for "oy"? All the bouzouki dancing and retsina in the world wouldn't be enough to make a satisfying play out of Onassis, Martin Sherman's rewrite of his own Aristo, seen two years ago at Chichester with the same director (long-time Sherman collaborator Nancy Meckler) and absolutely invaluable leading man (Robert Lindsay). The star gives the piece his customary highly theatrical all, in the process making you think perhaps the material really is the stuff of genuine tragedy. But all the high-flown talk of "destiny" and whatnot can't shift what Onassis actually is - less a fully realised drama than a celebrity flow-chart on stage.

The play traipses through Onassis's sexual history starting with his initiation at the hands (well, not quite) of a Turkish soldier

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