Watching Stephen Fry was like being in the presence of a god

Stephen Fry lies prone on an empty stage. A red ball rolls in from the wings and bashes him in the face. He stands up and introduces himself as Odysseus, stranded on an island-kingdom as he makes his way home after the Trojan War. The ball had escaped from the hands of a clumsy maidservant who was playing on the beach with a local princess. Now Fry, as Odysseus, begs her help and asks for a petticoat to cover his nakedness. This tale comes from Homer’s Odyssey, Book Six, but Fry doesn’t quote the reference he merely plunges on with the story. Odysseus shows up at the palace of the local warlord, King Alcinous, and tries to explain how he came to be wearing the princess’s undergarments. From here the scene moves to Troy and Fry tells the extraordinary tale of Paris — rejected by his parents but rescued by a kindly shepherd — who seduced Helen, wife of Menelaus, and brought the fractious states of Greece into a military alliance. Thus began the Trojan War. In the course of 150 minutes (and speaking without notes), Fry covers about a quarter of the Iliad and nearly all of the Odyssey, adding supplementary flourishes along the way. In an interlude on lexicography he dashes off a memorable analysis of hieroglyphics and its replacement by the more sophisticated alphabetic system of writing. The stories that Fry recounts form the basis of European literature and it’s hard to imagine that any performer in the modern age has told them with such lucidity and panache, such mesmerising freshness. When Fry chose to become an actor, the world of classical scholarship lost a teacher of rare creativity and charm. He has the magical ability to conjure up the ancient world as if it were a pleasing corner of his private orchard.