A stunning play from the Mercury Prize-winning poet Kae Tempest.

‘Tempest has a gift for shattering and transcending convention.’ New York Times

Philoctetes lives in a cave on a desolate island: the wartime hero is now a wounded outcast. Stranded for ten years, he sees a chance of escape when a young soldier appears with tales of Philoctetes’ past glories. But with hope comes suspicion – and, as an old enemy emerges, he is faced with an even greater temptation: revenge.

Kae Tempest is now widely acknowledged as a revolutionary force in contemporary British poetry, music and drama; they continue to expand the range of their work with a new version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes in a bold new translation. Like Brand New Ancients before it, Paradise shows Tempest’s gift for lending the old tales an immediate contemporary relevance – and will find this timeless story a wide new audience.

"One of the brightest British talents around. [Tempest's] spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart . . . drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday" - Guardian

"Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality . . . [An] hypnotically persuasive vision" - New York Times